Seven-Month Wait for Aluminum Drives LME to Review Rules

When the London Metal Exchange was founded in the days of steamships, contracts were priced three months out to reflect the time it took to get tin from Southeast Asia or copper from Chile. These days, it can take twice as long to get aluminum out of an LME-approved warehouse in Detroit.

The waiting lines are spurring complaints from consumers about a business that’s now part of Wall Street, with storage owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. While global aluminum inventories reached a record in May, buyers in the U.S. Midwest were paying the biggest premium in more than a decade for immediate supply. The LME’s board meets tomorrow to review rules on delivery rates from the largest stockpiles.