Aluminium price forecast: $3,000 ascent in January demands a global price recalculation
The London Metal Exchange (LME) aluminium contract entered 2026 with a bang of a hike, as in early January, the three-month contract crossed USD 3,000 per tonne for the first time since 2022, trading at USD 3,015.50 before extending gains later in the month. The move was not the product of speculative momentum alone. Back in 2022 production and energy costs, China’s production cap and Russia-Ukraine’s war imparted their fair share of spices into the price hike scenario. But this time, it reflected a convergence of constrained supply, tightening physical availability and US and EU’s policy-driven rigidity, consequently leading to altered price expectations for the rest of 2026.
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