US service centers shipped 139,500 mt of aluminum products in April, up 9.8% compared with the same month in 2013, the Metals Service Center Institute said Friday.
Shipments in the first four months of 2014 stood at 533,600 mt, up 10.1% compared with the same period in 2013, MSCI said.
Inventories of aluminum products at the end of April stood at 391,700 mt, up 6.7% from the end of April 2013. This represents 2.8 months of aluminum inventory at the current shipping rate, down from 2.9 months a year earlier, MSCI said.
Illinois-based MSCI also noted that Canadian service centers shipped 13,400 mt of aluminum products in April, down 5.3% from the same month in 2013. Canadian shipments for the first four months of 2014 totaled 52,700 mt, an increase of 0.5% over the same period in 2013.
Canadian service center inventories of aluminum products were 39,500 mt at the end of April, up 6.6% from a year ago. At the current shipping rate, Canada's aluminum distributors were carrying 3 months of supply in inventory, up from 2.6 months a year earlier.