Winter Park, Florida 17/05/2016 - The US Aluminum Association's index of net new orders of aluminium mill products decreased 3.2 percent in April from the previous month.
Orders for flat roll products were down 3.7 percent while orders for extruded products fell 2.2 percent but orders for redraw rod were up 3.4 percent, the association said.
But compared with April 2015, orders were up 3.4 percent. On average, orders recorded by domestic producers in the first four months of this year were up a modest 1.2 percent over last year, the trade group said.
Meanwhile, net shipments of aluminium sheet and plate by US and Canadian producers totalled 707.2 million pounds (320,000 tonnes) during April 2016, down four percent from March but up three percent year-on-year. Year-to-date shipments through April 2016 totalled 2.791 billion pounds (1.27 million tonnes), up just 1.7 percent, the Aluminum Association said.
The soft patch in April mirrors what was seen in the physical primary aluminium market. The Midwest P1020 ingot premium in April fell to 7.5-8.0 cents per pound, with producers and consumers both acknowledging an atypical lack of springtime demand.
"Spot deals have evaporated lately," one billet producer told FastMarkets on April 22. "We've seen a slight weakening in our orders, nothing significant or major, but we are holding a lot of raw material."
But activity has started to pick up a little in May after prices on the the London Metal Exchange corrected lower. Three-month aluminium is now trading at $1,543.00 per tonne, off about 7.5 percent since the end of April.
"This might be a good price to jump in if you're a consumer," a US trader said last week. "I think there were some people who were waiting for a price correction before ordering more material [for the third quarter]."
(Editing by Mark Shaw)