Aluminum alloy market price is dropping as we speculated previously. We assume that this trend will maintain at least till the end of Jan. Therefore, in terms of LME3 rates, there is still about USD80-100 space for the adjustment. After Feb, as many of the Chinese factories restart production, the market price may go up a bit for a short time. However, the previous high price will further suppress the demand for aluminum products for two to three months, where the market price will further go down. USD1850 is likely the comfortable price level for both supply and demand ends.
On the other hand, the marine shipment cost still goes crazy. The costs for the routes China-West Africa and China-South America have topped USD10,000 and USD7,500 (for 40HQ) respectively. They were about USD6,800 and USD5,000 last month.