Britons famously love queueing. Buyers of metals do not. The US commodities watchdog continues its probe into the metals warehousing industry. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Glencore are on the receiving end as owners of London Metal Exchange warehouses. The brewer and consumer of metals such as aluminium, MillerCoors, has complained that its costs have been inflated by long queues for delivery of the metal. What is going on?

Metals in warehouses is a small part of the physical market. They contain about 10m tonnes of aluminium, for example, compared with 48m tonnes in annual production capacity. And there is still excess supply of the metal.

Moreover, end-users of aluminium such as MillerCoors, are not a big part of the warehouse queues. They have long-term off take agreements with original producers. It is banks and traders sitting in those queues – they want the aluminium, say, to play the same financing game themselves. (The game is that for some time futures prices have been above spot prices plus storage and financing costs – a free lunch for those with a warehouse.)