Aluminium prices extend fall after US reprieve for Rusal

BEIJING: Aluminium prices continued to fall on Tuesday after Washington gave U.S. customers of Russian producer United Company Rusal more time to close out their business with the company and comply with sanctions. 
    
The US sanctions on Rusal, announced on April 6, last week drove prices for the metal to their highest since mid-2011 on fears that the global market could face shortages.
        
 FUNDAMENTALS

LME ALUMINIUM: Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was down 1.7 percent at $2,250 a tonne by 0139 GMT. It fell by as much as 3.1 percent earlier in the session to $2,223, its lowest since April 12, and slid by 7 percent on Monday in its biggest one-day drop in eight years.

SHFE ALUMINIUM: The most-traded June aluminium contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange slipped 3.3 percent to $14,445 yuan ($14,445.00) a tonne. 
    
RUSAL: The U.S. Treasury gave Americans until Oct 23 instead of June 5 to wind down business with Rusal and said it would consider lifting the sanctions if Rusal's major shareholder, Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska, ceded control of the
company.

INSIGHT: In December, as news reports emerged about potential new U.S. sanctions against Russia, aluminium magnate Deripaska instructed advisers to draw up contingency plans, according to people close to the businessman and his firms.

NICKEL: The Philippines is planning to limit the amount of land that miners can develop at any one time to boost environmental rehabilitation, a move that miners say may cut output of nickel ore in last year's top supplier to China.

CHILE: Chilean industrial conglomerate Empresas Copec SA said on Monday it had reached an agreement with Peru's Minsur S.A. to buy a 40-percent stake in a holding company that owns a Peruvian copper mine project for $168.5 million. - Reuters