A 5-year high production of world alumina tells just the opposite story than primary metal – here’s the insider

The world alumina production in 2025 tells markedly different story thanprimary aluminium. While the primary metal clocked the weakest growth rate in recent years, alumina registered the strongest five-year leap. According to the International Aluminium Institute (IAI), the world alumina production gained 5.07 per cent Y-o-Y in 2025 as against a 1.06 per cent increase in the world primary aluminium output. In the preceding years, the global alumina production growth rate majorly ranged between 2-4 per cent from 2021 to 2024.

The acceleration was led overwhelmingly by metallurgical-grade alumina, the feedstock for aluminium smelters. As far as chemical-grade is concerned, it grew by 3.15 per cent in 2025, which, however, was not the highest growth in past five years. In years like 2021 and 2022, the world chemical-grade bauxite production had even surged by 8.3 per cent and 11.3 per cent.

Coming back to metallurgical-grade alumina, the growth rate seen in 2025 can apparently leave a room for a few critical questions like - how alumina production boomed despite the bauxite supply chain constraint worldwide and where was this additional alumina output absorbed, given the tight growth rate in primary aluminium production. However, this puzzle can be solved with some facts and figures and here they are.

A strong finish drives annual growth

According to the data revealed by the International Aluminium Institute, the world alumina production in 2025 totalled 144.98 million tonnes as against 137.879 million tonnes in 2024. The year-on-year surge was decisively driven by the second half of the year. The turning point came in Q3 2025, when the output rose 5.9 per cent Q-o-Q and 6.36 per cent Y-o-Y. Successively, in Q4, the output grew by about 2 per cent sequentially and 6 per cent annually.