re: Aluminum prices diverging between America and rest of first world

I just sold about a month ago four 40 ft gooseneck trailer loads of old aluminum floats 23 in diameter, 5-6 ft long. Double stacked.

Made for some nice holiday cash

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private equity tom-foolery

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the tariff wars

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A great competition developing between these two to raise prices and diminish quality for most Americans quicker.

The section 232 tariffs on aluminum dont make alot of fundamental sense. We dont mine nor have great sources inside our border for the 2 primary ingredients to make aluminum. Smelting scrap will not ever fix this, although it will be very profitable for that smelter.

Importing converted aluminum is still cheaper than domestic producers because of this fact, it's just the whole price curve has skyrocketed for only us americans. Whether your importing and paying the tarriff to bring it in, or buying domestic and eating the midwest premium, it doesnt matter, youre getting fked up. Theres been very little actual functional purchasing changes in my experience in the industry

The domestic exteuder salesmen I deal with are not happy about this situation. Their customers getting massive price pressure due to tariffs is not good for business. It seems like its wrecking the conversion business here inside the US and hurting everyone downstream of that. Im starting to think this might actually cause contractions in the overall aluminum industry in the US.

A lot of vehicles use aluminum, will this be a strain on new truck prices?

Pretty sure they used those 2 big hills of bauxite back in the late 00s - early 10s. You can still go feed the ducks though

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That bauxite-alumina step is dirty, just look here in SE La where Jamaican ore is processed. Alumina-aluminum is electric and quite clean...the plants in Iceland are spotless.

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Department of War (DOW) recently announced a $450mm investment in that Atalco site. (Millions of which will have to go straight to cleaning up the environmental issues.)

There are also companies looking at further extracting rare earth metals from the bauxite reside. Those red dust mounds could be a gold mine if they can scale up the extraction technology.

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ElementUSA will use its proprietary processes to extract gallium, scandium, iron and other critical minerals from more than 30 million tons of bauxite residue, the byproduct of the alumina refining process. Supported by a $29.9 million U.S. Department of War grant, the company will first construct a demonstration facility in St. James Parish to validate its extraction process and guide the design of a future commercial-scale facility.

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