SMM, June 29: In early trading, the SHFE aluminum 2606 contract's center traded higher than the same period in the previous trading session. Driven by the rise in aluminum prices, overall market buying sentiment declined today. Some warrant cargoes flowed out of the market, with ample overall circulating supply. Mainstream transactions were at discounts of 10-0 yuan/mt against the SHFE aluminum 07 contract. The east China selling sentiment index was 3.18 today, up 0.03 MoM; the purchasing sentiment index was 2.86, down 0.14 MoM. Today, aluminum futures saw a slight correction, with trading sentiment in central China being predominantly sluggish. Downstream processing enterprises exhibited low buying sentiment, and with traders recently releasing large volumes of low-priced warrant cargoes, market supply was abundant, leading suppliers to quote prices in a price-collapse manner for shipments, with poor willingness to hold prices firm. Ultimately, the actual transaction price range in central China centered around discounts of 20-50 yuan/mt against the SHFE aluminum 07 contract, with a weakening trend in prices. The central China selling sentiment index was 2.91 today, up 0.01 MoM; the purchasing sentiment index was 2.13, down 0.01 MoM. Inventory side, aluminum ingot inventories in major consumption regions fell 2.4 MoM today, with all three regions showing destocking trends.

Indonesia's Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia inaugurated the Mini LNG Plant of PT Sumber Aneka Gas (SAG) in Tuban, East Java, on Thursday, June 25, 2026, to promote natural gas utilization for the national economy; the project, which began in 2015 and entered its commissioning phase in 2026, produces LNG, CNG, LPG, and condensate with plans for liquid CO2, drawing gas supply through 2035 from the Sumber Field operated by PT Pertamina Hulu Energi Tuban East Java at 15 MMSCFD, with Bahlil calling it a tangible step by the company to meet domestic energy needs.

In June the aluminum processing industry exhibited a pronounced divergence pattern of "external demand outperforming domestic demand, with the aluminum wire and cable industry unable to sustain the market on its own." Export orders, energy storage, UHV, and other areas provided structural support, but a combination of weak domestic consumption, wild swings in aluminum prices, and policy disruptions made it difficult for the overall industry sentiment to recover markedly in the short term.

Today, the most-traded HRC contract traced an "N"-shaped pattern, closing at 3,319 with an intraday gain of 0.21%. Spot HRC prices were mostly stable, with some markets edging lower to facilitate transactions. On the supply side, no new rolling line maintenance was added this week, while previously idled lines gradually resumed production, leading to expectations of a slight increase in overall HRC output. On the demand side, current demand fully reflected off-season characteristics, with the market dominated by low-price deals. Amid the contango structure, some new hedging-related demand was released, though it remained cautious. On the cost side, the 9th round of coke price increases was about to take effect. Additionally, after the market closed, rumors circulated about a coal mine accident in Shanxi and customs clearance restrictions at the Mongolian border, which may provide a short-term emotional jolt. Looking ahead, the fundamentals of sheets & plates themselves remain weak in the short term, lacking bullish support. The focus remains on the cost side, whether on sentiment fluctuations driven by physical realities or expectations. However, relatively speaking, the extent to which sheets & plates follow these swings is limited.

SMM learned that a computing power operation enterprise in Guizhou currently has no idle computing power resources available on its platform for scheduling, with its existing GPU servers and domestically produced AI accelerator cards all operating under full load. Recently, as multiple industry large models have entered the fine-tuning and inference deployment stages intensively, computing power demand surged in the short term, causing the platform's computing power resources to be fully strained. It is understood that the enterprise is actively seeking domestically produced computing power resources as a supplement. As a core hub of the "East Data West Computing" project, Guizhou, according to the Guizhou Provincial Big Data Development Administration's publication *Compute to Guizhou | Digital Intelligence Empowers the Building of a Computing Power Hub*, had its total computing power scale surpass 160 EFLOPS in 2025, with the domestically produced intelligent computing share exceeding 98%. However, short-term structural supply-demand mismatch still exists, and the phenomenon of "one card is hard to find" during peak seasons occasionally occurs on some small and medium-sized computing power platforms.

[Domestic Iron Ore Brief Review] This week, domestic iron ore concentrate prices edged down. By region, prices in Tangshan, Qian'an, Qianxi, and other areas in Hebei were relatively stable; in western Liaoning, Chaoyang, Beipiao, Jianping, and other places, prices dropped by 1-5 yuan/mt; and East China fell 1-5 yuan/mt. This week, most mines and beneficiation plants operated normally as planned, with the overall ore supply remaining tight. On the demand side, steel mills and traders maintained purchasing as needed.