Top uranium producer Kazakhstan hikes tax
The world’s largest producer of uranium is increasing its mining tax on the nuclear fuel by at least 50% next year.
Aluminum stocks of Russian origin in London Metal Exchange-approved warehouses, available to the market, rose to 81% of the total in July from 80% in June, data on the exchange’s website showed on Thursday.
Available stocks are referred to as on-warrant. Warrants are title documents conferring ownership of metal.
The share of Russian origin stocks in LME-registered warehouses has been gradually rising this year as some traders and consumers scramble for alternatives to the Russian metals, even though they are not directly targeted by Western sanctions imposed on Moscow.
Major producer Norsk Hydro in July called for the LME to reconsider a decision not to ban Russian aluminum from its warehouse network, saying that large volumes were jeopardizing the benchmark status of its contract.
Russian aluminum stocks on LME warrant rose to 227,525 metric tons in July from 218,025 in June, data published by the world’s oldest exchange and largest metals market showed.
The proportion of Indian aluminum inventories in LME-registered warehouses, which has been dragged down by the shift in demand away from the Russian metal, was unchanged at 18% in July.
After July’s surge of copper stocks available to the market in LME-registered warehouses from June, when large amounts of inventory were earmarked to leave the LME system, the proportion of Russian-origin stocks fell to 33% from 66%, the LME said.
The actual amount of Russian copper in on-warrant inventories rose to 24,150 metric tons from 22,750.
Russian nickel made up 20% of available stocks, or 7,026 metric tons, against 22% in June.
(By Polina Devitt; Editing by Jason Neely, Susan Fenton and Conor Humphries)
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