The US$5bil hoard of metal the world wants but can’t have - one which Vietnam has plenty in its stockpile

HANOI, Nov 21 (Bloomberg): On an industrial park about an hour’s drive toward the South China Sea coast from Ho Chi Minh City sit giant mounds of raw metal shrouded in black tarpaulin. Stretching a kilometre in length, the much-coveted hoard could be worth about US$5 billion at current prices.

In the esoteric world of aluminum, those in the know say the stockpile in Vietnam is the biggest they have ever seen - and that’s in an industry that spends a lot of time building stockpiles while analysts spend a lot of time trying to locate them.