[China Aluminum] In the face of the complex economic situation at home and abroad and the adverse effects of the market environment, this article will rely on the analysis of the overall situation in the previous quarter to clarify the economic operation mode of the aluminum market.
(I) In the first quarter, domestic aluminum prices rose first and then held up. In January and February, domestic aluminum prices continued to rise, with year-on-year increases of 3.0% and 1.0%, respectively. In March, the price of aluminum fell slightly by 1.3% to 16,521 yuan/ton. In the first quarter, the average price of A00 aluminum ingots in the Shanghai area was 16,616 yuan/ton, up by 3.0% from the previous period and up by 1.3% year-on-year.
(II) In the first quarter, the domestic alumina self-sufficiency rate increased significantly. In the first quarter, the alumina import scale was significantly reduced. In January and February, the alumina imports amounted to 34,220,000 tons, which was at a historically lower level. The degrees of dependence on alumina imports were 11.4% and 7.8%, respectively, down 9.7 and 7.1 percentage points compared with the same period in 2010. From a longitudinal perspective, the dependence on alumina imports has dropped from more than 50% in the early 21st century to less than 10% at present, reflecting the substantial increase in domestic alumina self-sufficiency rate.
The decline in the scale of alumina imports on the one hand is due to a substantial increase in domestic production. In January and February, domestic alumina production increased significantly. According to the average annual production capacity of 42 million tons, capacity utilization rates in January and February were as high as 75.7% and 74.8%, respectively, which was an increase of 4-9 percentage points from the second half of 2010. In January, the output reached 2.6507 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 6.29%, a record high. In February, the output was affected by the Spring Festival holiday and fell slightly by 1.2% from the previous quarter, but it increased by 11.52% year-on-year. The output scale was still very high.
On the other hand, the low import price and the shrinking of import profit space are also important reasons. According to the input-output ratio of 2:1 alumina and electrolytic aluminum, the domestic alumina market continued to be in an oversupply situation in the first quarter. In January and February, the excess volume was 38.9 and 224,000 tons, respectively, which suppressed domestic alumina to some extent. Price increase trend. It is understood that from January to March, the internal and external price of alumina dropped from 7.34 at the beginning of the year to 6.82 in late March, with a cumulative decrease of 7.1%. It shows that domestic alumina prices are relatively low and traders’ import enthusiasm is weak.
(III) In the first quarter, the increase in net imports of electrolytic aluminum and the scale of net export of aluminum alloys and aluminum materials increased significantly. Domestic and domestic electrolytic aluminum production was 129.9 and 1.306 million tons in January and February, respectively, down 2.7% and 0.4% year-on-year, respectively. 1-2 The cumulative monthly decrease was 1.55%; the capacity utilization rate was 70.8% and 71.2% respectively, which was an increase of about 5 percentage points from the end of the previous year.
The continuous net import of domestic primary aluminum in January and February was 33,672 tons and 17,371 tons respectively, up by 8.9% and 20.4% respectively over the same period of last year. The apparent consumption was 1.332 million tons and 1.323 million tons respectively, accumulatively increasing by 1.5% year-on-year.
In January and February, the output of aluminum alloys was 278.9 and 2.76 million tons, respectively, an increase of 33.0% and 44.9% year-on-year, respectively, but a decrease of 11.1% and 1.1% respectively.
The net export volume of aluminum alloys rose slightly after the first increase, and the growth rate was 9.8% and -47.1% respectively. In January-February, net exports of aluminum alloys totaled 74,902 tons, an increase of 96.1% year-on-year.
Domestic aluminum output continued to decline in January and February, with year-on-year declines of 11.4% and 8.9%, respectively, but it still maintained rapid growth, with an increase of 37.1% and 53.48%, respectively. The cumulative January-February output increased by 44.45% year-on-year.
In January and February, the domestic aluminum net export volume rose first and then decreased, reaching 16.8 and 114,000 tons, respectively, an increase of 22.1% and -32.1% from the previous quarter and a cumulative increase of 49.0%. Among them, net exports accounted for 8.3% of total domestic output in January, the highest since August 2010. The apparent consumption of copper in January and February increased by 43.5% and 20.0% respectively year-on-year, accumulating 31.4% year-on-year.
(IV) The growth rate of sales of commercial housing has slowed down significantly, and the amount of aluminum used in building decoration and other industries has decreased. Since mid-2010, the real estate control policies of successive attacks have caused the booming property market to gradually calm down. Real estate sales have been chilled and the market has become increasingly awaited. February is the period of the domestic Spring Festival holiday. According to previous years, it was the peak period of home buyers, but this year it was relatively "cool." In January-February, the total sales area of ​​domestic commercial housing was 81,429,500 square meters, an increase of 13.8% year-on-year, a decrease of 24.4 percentage points from the same period of 2010. In mid-March, the Central Bank announced that in the previous quarter, a questionnaire survey of depositors, bankers, and entrepreneurs was conducted in the previous quarter. The content showed that residents’ willingness to consume was low in 12 years, and 74.4% of residents thought that “current housing prices are too high to acceptâ€. And hope that "the property market regulation to give more strength." The weakening of purchase intentions and the reduction of consumer willingness have brought a "chill" to the housing renovation market, which has exerted pressure on the aluminum consumption of the entire industry.
(V) Withdrawal of automobile sales promotion policies, decline in production and sales, and suppression of aluminum demand. Starting in early 2011, many automobile development promotion policies were formally withdrawn, and Beijing has implemented a policy of blocking sales and restricting purchases, which is not conducive to the sustained and rapid growth of the automotive industry; - After continuous and swift growth in 2010, the production and sales of automobiles have already reached a considerable scale, and a large base has caused a low increase. In January-February, China’s domestic automobile production totaled 3.133 million units, an increase of 10.3% year-on-year, a decrease of nearly 80 percentage points from the same period of 2010, of which production and sales volume in February were 1,260,300 and 1,267,700, respectively, a decrease of 29.9% and a month-on-month basis. 33.1%. The sharp decline in the growth rate of the automotive industry has also greatly limited the increase in demand for aluminum.
(6) The rise in oil prices and the increase in power costs have severely squeezed the profit margins of aluminum mills along with the development of the turmoil in the Middle East. Global oil prices have been driven by impetus. The National Development and Reform Commission recently raised oil prices again. Public opinion believes that oil prices will enter the “10-year era†soon. . Rising oil prices are driving the rise in global electricity prices. It is understood that Norway, a large European producer of aluminum, relies heavily on hydropower, and this year's two cold waves drastically pushed up wholesale power prices; Japan’s nuclear leakage situation has been grim for a long time, leading the world’s major countries to be more cautious about the use of nuclear power and the reduction in the supply of nuclear power to Germany, resulting in electricity prices. Rising; all this has contributed to deeper and broader crisis of rising oil prices caused by the situation in the Middle East. In addition, the domestic coal-electricity linkage is expected to restart, because aluminum smelting is a large consumer of electricity, which will seriously squeeze aluminum profit margins, forcing some companies to withdraw from the market competition.
(7) The emergence of “carbon†trading forces the enforcement of a new round of energy consumption standards in the aluminum industry from Copenhagen to Cancun. At the climate change conference, how to allocate carbon dioxide emissions in the future becomes the focus of debate. In accordance with the will of the developed countries, combined with the pace of economic development in our country, we have to spend money to purchase carbon emission rights from developed countries after 10 years. This is extremely unreasonable. However, due to China's large population and development cycle, it is likely that China will become a larger global carbon market in the future. Therefore, China must accelerate the development of emission standards for high-energy-consuming industries and implement them strictly and enforceably.
The alumina and electrolytic aluminum industries all belong to the domestic high-energy-consuming industries. The rapid and strict implementation of the energy consumption standards will accelerate the elimination of outdated production capacity to a certain extent, and some companies that are not up to the standard will face the risk of “downstageâ€.
Of course, there is still a big opportunity for aluminum. With the rapid rise in copper prices, research on "Al-copper substitutes" has become more and more in-depth. In the future, there should be an ever-expanding field and scale, which will have a beneficial effect on its demand. In summary, the aluminum market in the second quarter is facing slow growth in demand; raw material costs are difficult to support and bearish, and prices are unlikely to rise significantly. At the same time, the substantial increase in the cost of electricity, energy-saving and emission-reduction costs, etc., will also cause severe challenges for some enterprises.
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