FxWirePro: Daily Commodity Tracker - 21st March, 2022 
On April 6th, United States’ Treasury Department announced fresh new sanctions against Russia targeting government officials, businessmen, and weapon business. According to the statement, the department designated seven Russian oligarchs and 12 companies they own or control, 17 senior Russian government officials, and a state-owned Russian weapons trading company and its subsidiary, a Russian bank. One of the companies badly hit was Russian Aluminum giant Rusal, the biggest aluminum producer outside of China, which saw its share tank while the price of Aluminum Skyrocketed.
After the announcement, the price of Aluminum rose from $2050 per ton in the London Metal Exchange (LME) to as high as $2720 per ton. As the move threatened to disrupt the global Aluminum market and increase the cost of U.S. aluminum importers at a time when President Trump has already announced a 10 percent tariff on all Aluminum imports, the U.S. Treasury has granted relief both to the Aluminum market and Rusal, by announcing a dealy on implementing the sanctions.
The U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced on Monday that the U.S. Treasury is extending the deadline for companies to wind down business with Rusal by five months and added that it would provide the company with sanctions relief if the current largest stakeholder (Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska) divest its stake in the company. A statement on the U.S. Treasury Department’s website quoted Mnuchin as saying, “RUSAL has felt the impact of U.S. sanctions because of its entanglement with Oleg Deripaska, but the U.S. government is not targeting the hardworking people who depend on RUSAL and its subsidiaries……RUSAL has approached us to petition for delisting. Given the impact on our partners and allies, we are issuing a general license extending the maintenance and wind-down period while we consider RUSAL’s petition.”
The announcement has pushed the Aluminum price lower and Rusal share price higher. The price of Aluminum declined to $2261 per ton in LME, while the price of Rusal rose as much as 37 percent in Hong Kong, and currently trading at HKD2.07. The price of Rusal had fallen by almost 70 percent after the announcement.
