Don Kenobi
/ 83.5.232.* / 2009-05-20 15:24
Aluminum for three-month delivery fell 0.9 percent to $1,486 a ton. LME-monitored inventories of the lightweight metal rose 2 percent today to a record 4.14 million tons.
World aluminum production was little changed in April at an average 93,800 tons a day from the prior month, according to the International Aluminium Institute.
Daily output was down from 107,300 tons in April last year, the London-based institute said.
Lead fell 1.8 percent to $1,458 a ton, while zinc dropped 2.5 percent to $1,487, after dropping as much as 4.1 percent.
“Certainly lead and zinc are under a little bit of attack,” Alex Heath, head of industrial metals trading at RBC Capital Markets in London, said today by phone.
The two metals declined because of poor fundamentals, “combined with a deteriorating technical picture,” he said.
The surplus in the global lead market reached 12,800 tons in the first quarter this year, the World Bureau of Metal Statistics said in a report today.
Nickel rose 0.6 percent to $12,550 a ton and tin fell 0.3 percent