Proposal to launch Indonesia, Vietnam, India inferred indices for alumina index, fob Australia

The launch of the inferred indices will allow Fastmarkets to bring additional transparency to the global alumina market and will complement the existing price offering.

The growing importance of Indonesia-, Vietnam- and India-origin alumina in the international market is creating industry demand for more detailed pricing information for markets ex-Australia.

In-house netback rates will be applied only to the existing MB-ALU-0002 alumina index, fob Australia and will be available as inferred indices on the Fastmarkets platform.

Data relating to trades outside the fob Bunbury, Australia, base specification is currently normalized using models developed in-house and based on regression analysis of the collected data points from the previous month and updated on the first working day of each month. The same method will be applied for the proposed inferred indices.

An inferred number is a calculation using existing Fastmarkets prices. The new inferred indices will take the daily alumina index, fob Australia, and add the relevant assessed netback rate.

Subject to industry feedback, Fastmarkets may publish the netbacks as a standalone percentage rate on the Fastmarkets platform.

Fastmarkets will update the netback rates on the first working day of the month. The inferred indicies will be published daily following the publication of Fastmarkets’ alumina index, fob Australia.

The proposed price specifications are:

Alumina index inferred, fob Indonesia, $/tonne
Quality: Smelter grade alumina, minimum purity of 98.5% AI2O3
Location: fob Indonesia
Unit: USD per tonne
Publication: Daily at 4-5pm UK time

Alumina index inferred, fob India, $/tonne
Quality: Smelter grade alumina, minimum purity of 98.5% AI2O3
Location: fob India
Unit: USD per tonne
Publication: Daily at 4-5pm UK time

Alumina index inferred, fob Vietnam, $/tonne
Quality: Smelter grade alumina, minimum purity of 98.5% AI2O3
Location: fob Vietnam
Unit: USD per tonne
Publication: Daily at 4-5pm UK time

The consultation period for this proposed launch starts on Tuesday July 16 and will end on August 13.

The launch will take place, subject to market feedback, on September 2.

These prices will be part of the Fastmarkets base metals package.

To provide feedback on this consultation, or if you would like to provide price information by becoming a data submitter to this market, please contact Laura Roberts by email at pricing@fastmarkets.com. Please add the subject heading “FAO Laura Roberts re: published netback consultation.”

Please indicate if comments are confidential. Fastmarkets will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.

To see all of Fastmarkets’ pricing methodology and specification documents, go to: https://www.fastmarkets.com/methodology/.