Metal Prices Going Up Again

Americans are privileged to pay the highest $/lb for aluminum in the world now. Lucky us.

But hey, the smelters are printing money and talking about projects that will never happen while the general aluminum industry contracts. Talked to a extruder in texas the other day that is now paying into lobbying pool to get tariffs relief, "its not helping, its hurting"

How will my sandwich’s get wrapped?!?!?

The better question is how will the building get wrapped.

Bidding is slowing. Material prices going up now isn’t going to be a positive.

Construction costs were up 7% YOY last time I looked. The architectural billings index has been under 50 all year.

Well frick this. I’m not wrapping my food today with my Reynolds Wrap. I’m heading to the coin store with my aluminum foil to get a quote on the melt value.

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Americans are privileged to pay the highest $/lb for aluminum in the world now. Lucky us.

But hey, the smelters are printing money and talking about projects that will never happen while the general aluminum industry contracts. Talked to a extruder in texas the other day that is now paying into lobbying pool to get tariffs relief, "its not helping, its hurting"

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It seems most of the aluminum is getting swallowed up by the AI Data Centers. They are using aluminum conductors more than copper due to cost.

Aluminum doesn't have a shot of ever coming down to reasonable prices. We went and made our car manufacturing reliant on it. Heavy trucks and SUVs rely on it to make the vehicle lighter to meet Obama's stupid MPG laws.

Also, insurance went up because aluminum stretches when it gets hit and can't be shrunk (yes you can shrink metal down) and worked back into place like metal panels, so now instead of repairing a small spot, you have to replace whole panels. On beds and pillars that requires cutting and spot welding new panels into place. A nightmare job and expensive vs working metal back and putting bondo on it. Source: my grandpa started a body shop in 1964 that my uncle still runs to this day.

That's why so many vehicles get totaled for the smallest damage vs in the past

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I have a pile of scrap aluminum floats and other metal on the farm


Time to make a run to the scrap yard

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Is copper going up?


I have a ton of old copper from some A/C jobs and rewiring a few flip houses. I have some long runs of 4/2 that we had to replace and had to cut up to do so. I need to strip it because you get more for clean wire.

I just threw away an old condensing unit. Those A-Coils are full of aluminum.

The cost to get a ton of aluminum to the Midwest was $5300 in February (the US Midwest premium). I’m guessing it’s significantly higher now.

That’s not being driven much by data center usage. It’s tariffs.

And the new way of calculating tariffs on finished product value is b a n a n a s. This shite is bananas.

I’m not sure how much of a factor this is, but electricians (like me) are using much more aluminum wire these days. The price of copper is ridiculous. Before covid, a 250’ roll of 12-2 was about $50. Post covid, we saw it hit $185. It settled around $150 for a while. It’s now back up to $180. There is no satisfactory explanation. I couldn’t even tell you what the price of aluminum was before covid- I never used it. Now, I’ll use it for everything I can.

You have no clue what youre talking about. Every section 232 tarriff increase was absorbed by Midwest pricing within a week. Our aluminum smelting capacity has actually been decreasing still while all the downstream aluminum industry in this country contracts which provides multiples more jobs than smelting.

Sure theres some smelter projects on paper that will go live some point in next decade with Saudi money....riiiight, it might as well be a joke when you discuss that project with people in the know.

The only people making gains fron these tariffs are the smelters (Alcoa, century, etc) and they arent increasing capacity, they are just making profit. They arent going to commit billions tk a project that doesnt go live until we are 1 or 2 presidents down the road who may have drastically different ideas.

One day we might get our smelting capacity up, hopefully theres still an aluminum manufacturing industry to service. American downstream companies cant be competitive on a international stage now, we are hamstrung. Its not about "cheap" aluminum, its about not paying multiples more than anyone else in the world, it makes no sense and as someone in the industry, I have not seen a single positive real thing come to fruition due to this effort, only pain