Aluminium stocks were in demand on Thursday as the price of the non-ferrous metal spiked on reports that the US may impose restrictions on Russian imports in the form of a huge rise in duties, an outright ban or sanctioning aluminium giant Rusal International.

Russia is the world’s second biggest supplier of aluminium after China. The development comes at a time China is imposing Covid restrictions after the detection of a highly infectious variant, which can hit global supplies of the metal.

These factors led to aluminium prices on the London Metal Exchange (LME) rising 7.3 per cent to $2,300 a tonne. It later settled 3 per cent higher at $2,305 per tonne.

With prices of the commodity set to increase amid tight supplies, aluminium stocks witnessed good interest on the bourses. Shares of Hindalco, the Kumar Mangalam Birla firm, rose 0.26 per cent to Rs 401 after rising to a day’s high of 416.45.

On the other hand, the Nalco counter gained 2.55 per cent at Rs 72.35, while Vedanta rose 1.88 per cent to Rs 292.90 on the BSE.

Recently, the London Metal Exchange said that it is mulling whether metals from Russia such as nickel, aluminium, and copper should continue to be traded and stored in its system.

It came after a Reuters report which said that the metal bourse was planning to discuss banning new deliveries of Russian metal so its warehouses cannot be used to offload stock that are difficult to sell.

LME chief executive officer Matthew Chamberlain said in a statement that a discussion paper could also lay out potential options which could be pursued on the basis of market feedback gathered, including the option to take no action.

Russia’s Nornickel reportedly accounted for 7 per cent of global mined nickel production in 2021.

Rusal, which is the world’s largest aluminium producer outside China, is estimated to account for 6 per cent of the world production of the aluminium metal.