China's private aluminium stocks seen up more than 40 pct

China's privately held stocks of primary aluminium may have increased more than 40 percent from August to about a million tonnes, following high imports and increased production, traders and smelter sources said on Thursday.

The stocks, which include 272,618 tonnes in Shanghai exchange's warehouses as of last Friday but exclude state holdings, threaten to weigh on Chinese prices and trim imports, which halved in October.

They are equivalent to nearly a month's production in China, the world's top producer and consumer of the metal.

"We are cautious about the prices," said a sales manager at a large aluminium smelter. "Stocks now are about the same as a year earlier."

The stock estimate is close to the level seen nearly a year ago, when the State Reserves Bureau (SRB) kicked off a scheme to buy aluminium from smelters to help their operations as the global financial crisis cut demand.

High stocks and low demand prompted the SRB to buy 590,000 tonnes of primary aluminium to help smelters' operations between last December and February. Smelters finished their deliveries to the SRB in March and April.

State-owned power grids also purchased around 400,000 tonnes of aluminium from Aluminium Corp of China Ltd (Chalco) (2600.HK) (601600.SS), the country's top producer of the metal, in the first few months of the year.

Those state-backed purchases sucked up most of stocks in the domestic market in March and April, driving up prices and spurring record imports in the first half.

But again stocks have risen since May, following record imports. Chinese smelters have also reopened millions of tonnes of capacity due to firm prices, boosting production to a record in October for the second straight month.

In August, Chalco estimated 500,000-600,000 tonnes of aluminium were stored in private and Shanghai exchange warehouses. Those stocks were lower than an estimate of 700,000 tonnes made by analysts and smelter officials.

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