Aluminium market strains rise

Aluminium is suddenly acting like a missing part in a machine: one jam in the Middle East, one jam in New York, and factories far away start slowing down. Wood Mackenzie said the conflict could put 3 million to 3.5 million tonnes of 2026 output at risk, while market notes said London Metal Exchange aluminium moved above $3,500 a tonne on April 9. (woodmac.com, markets.financialcontent.com) A lot of that stress runs through one narrow waterway. S&P Global said Gulf producers depend heavily on the Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf Cooperation Council accounts for about 8% of global aluminium output. (spglobal.com) Aluminium is unusually exposed to power shortages because smelters run like giant electric furnaces that cannot be switched on and off cheaply. The International Aluminium Institute says making primary aluminium through electrolysis uses roughly 13.9 kilowatt-hours of electricity per kilogram of metal. (international-aluminium.org) That power problem is no longer just about fuel prices. The April 9 market note said heavy industry is now competing with fast-growing artificial intelligence data centres for electricity, tightening supply for energy-hungry metals production. (markets.financialcontent.com) The shipping shock is already changing trade routes. Reuters reported on April 8 that United Company Rusal planned to reroute some aluminium away from China to Japan and other Asian buyers as the Iran conflict reshaped flows. (msn.com) Then the problem jumped from the commodity market into car plants. Ford asked the Trump administration on April 5 for temporary relief from the 25% aluminium tariff after fires at Novelis’ Oswego, New York plant disrupted supply for aluminium sheet used in the Ford F-150 pickup. (msn.com, federalregister.gov) Those tariffs are not a small surcharge at the margin. United States Customs guidance says the aluminium duties took effect on March 12, 2025, under Section 232, and the White House said on April 4, 2026 that it had moved to strengthen tariffs on steel, aluminium, and copper imports. (content.govdelivery.com, whitehouse.gov) Ford did not get the break it wanted. Reports on April 8 said the administration rejected the request, leaving automakers to absorb both the domestic supply hit from the Novelis fires and the import cost from the tariff wall. (financialexpress.com, foxbusiness.com) This is why a metal price spike turns into a manufacturing story so fast. Aluminium goes into pickup bodies, electronics housings, heat sinks that pull heat out of chips, and countless stamped or machined parts, so a shortage hits both the raw metal and the finished components made from it. (markets.financialcontent.com, international-aluminium.org) What looked like separate problems now fits together in one chain: conflict threatens smelters and shipping, power scarcity threatens output, fires remove rolling capacity, and tariffs make replacement metal more expensive. When all four happen in the same month, aluminium stops being a background input and starts deciding which factories can keep building. (woodmac.com, spglobal.com, msn.com, content.govdelivery.com)