London — Aluminium is heading for its biggest winning streak since 1988 in the four days since the US slapped sanctions on United Company Rusal and as top exchanges said they will stop accepting metal from the Russian smelting giant. The metal advanced 3% on Wednesday to $2,266.50 a tonne by 11am on the London Metal Exchange (LME). That’s up 13% since Thursday, before the US announced sanctions. Both the LME and CME Group’s Comex have said they won’t allow new deliveries of metal from Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s Rusal, the biggest aluminium producer outside of China. "I think there’s definitely potential for prices to pass recent peaks," Helen Lau, an analyst at Argonaut Securities Asia, said from Hong Kong. "Imagine how tight the world market is going to be if you lose a 10th of world supply, even for the short term. More and more companies are responding to the sanctions." After declining through most of this year, aluminium is heading back toward its peak of $2,290.50 a ...
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