According to a recent survey, commodity investors are eager to profit from the surplus aluminum profile supply. They buy these metals, store them, and sell them for future production of millions of tons of light metals around the world.

Despite weak demand from automakers and other industrial consumers, as smelters continue to produce aluminum, their inventories are increasing, causing prices to fall. This allows commodities traders, hedge funds, and banks to conduct so-called financing transactions, that is, buying metals at low cost, storing them in warehouses, and then selling them in the futures market.

Eoin Dinsmore of CRU Consulting said: "One of the best risk-free transactions in the world right now is to buy some aluminum and store them in a warehouse." "It is not just global trading companies that finance aluminum. Everyone sees It's a good opportunity to make money," he added.

Roman Andryushin, the head of sales and marketing at Rusal, expressed a similar sentiment. He said: "We have seen strong interest from traders."

For these transactions to work, aluminum prices for immediate delivery must be lower than long-term futures contracts, a market structure known as futures premium.

The benchmark aluminum price for the London Metal Exchange (LME) delivered three months later fell to US$1537 per ton this year because of concerns that by 2020, supply might be 6 million tons higher than demand.

Citi analyst Oliver Nugent pointed out that some signals that financial transactions are taking off are that the premium for primary aluminum ingots is rising.

He said: "This shows that people have demand for metals and can sit down to raise funds." "There are free funds in the market because the situation of oversupply is very serious."

A similar situation occurred during the last financial crisis when large amounts of aluminum entered LME authorized warehouses.

Andreushen said that financing transactions and the accumulation of aluminum in warehouses may lead to shortages of value-added products such as rolled plates.

According to reports, traders are also taking advantage of rare opportunities to sell metals to China, which may lead to an increase in China's aluminum imports.

Dinsmore predicts that from May to the first half of June this year, China's aluminum imports will reach 250,000 tons, accounting for about one-third of China's total imports in 2019.