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By Yuka Obayashi
TOKYO, March 22 (Reuters) - Some Japanese aluminium buyers have agreed to pay a premium of $115 per tonne for primary metal for shipment in the April-June quarter, three sources directly involved in the quarterly pricing talks said.
The premium was reached with one global metal producer and is 4.5 percent higher than the $110 per tonne premium PREM-ALUM-JP in the previous quarter, a second straight quarter-on-quarter increase. The increase reflected lower inventories in Japan, the sources said.
Japan is Asia's biggest importer of aluminium and the premiums it agrees to pay for primary metal shipments each quarter over the London Metal Exchange (LME) cash price CMAL0 set the benchmark for the region.
The deals were struck over the past week with one producer that cut its proposal from an initial offer of $125 per tonne, a source at a trading firm told Reuters, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the talks.
Japanese buyers are still negotiating with global smelters, with further deals expected in the coming weeks.
Aluminium stocks at three major Japanese ports hit a record high of 502,200 tonnes in May last year as buyers elsewhere in Asia bought cheaper semi-fabricated products from China, prompting more primary metals to head to Japan to look for buyers.
But, by the end of February the stockpiles had dropped 27 percent from May to 365,600 tonnes as buyers reduced imports, according to trading house Marubeni Corp 8002.T . latest quarterly pricing negotiations began last month between Japanese buyers and global producers, including Alcoa Inc (NYSE:AA) AA.N , Rio Tinto RIO.L RIO.AX and South32 Ltd S32.AX , with initial offers ranging between $125 and $130 a tonne, according to sources.