Secondary aluminium is increasingly central to Europe’s decarbonisation plans. It is used in automotive castings, construction profiles, packaging and consumer goods and is valued because it can deliver similar mechanical properties to primary metal while requiring a fraction of the energy and...
As the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) gradually extends to downstream aluminium processing products, accurate product classification and origin information are becoming increasingly important and directly affect the assessment of potential carbon exposure. Following the analysis in...
Grow with
AL Circle
On December 16, South32 announced the shutdown of Mozambique’s Mozal aluminium smelter in 2026 due to the government’s failure to acquire a new power deal. Denting the global aluminium supply by pulling back its 560,000-tonne annual capacity, the smelter leaves Europe grasping for replacements....
The European Union is considering an expansion of its carbon border charge, a levy which is already set to apply to carbon-intensive metals like steel and aluminium as they enter the bloc. CBAM is designed to put a carbon price on imports of these materials to align them with the EU’s domestic...
As both the worldwide aluminium exporters and the EU-based importers must have realised in the meantime, CBAM knocks on the door and is no longer a distant regulatory concept. Here’s a CBAM checklist that distils the compliance pathway into five actionable steps published by the European Commission...
We were all happy when we heard about the scrap exemption from the CBAM regime. But instead, it turned out to be a two-edged sword. If an EU business imports scrap and manufactures secondary aluminium, it will have to pay the tax for the secondary aluminium manufacturing, in accordance with the ETS...
Edgardo Gelsomino has been a Subject Matter Expert in aluminium at Wood Mackenzie since 2010. Before joining Wood Mackenzie, Edgardo worked for an aluminium producer other leading London-based research and consulting firms. His work has spanned the entire aluminium value chain, including carbon...
Serbia is preparing for a significant policy shift at the start of next year, when new taxes on greenhouse gas emissions and imports of carbon-intensive goods take effect. Parliament has already approved both measures. Under the new rules, each tax is fixed at EUR 4 ( USD 4.66) for every tonne of...
Constellium vocalises the warning that the European Union (EU) should immediately eradicate the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). Its claim that the EU is posing a risk with the implementation of CBAM in January 2026, which is likely to ensure the slow demise of the European aluminium...
Mario Conserva, Secretary General of FACE and a veteran with over six decades in the aluminium industry, brings unmatched expertise as founder of METEF, leader of A&L Alluminio e Leghe, and a pioneering contributor with 800+ technical works. Recognised by the IAI as one of the 50 most influential...
When the European Union rolled out its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in 2023, a few energy-intensive industries felt the tremors more. Aluminium was one of them, while the rest were iron and steel, cement, fertilisers, hydrogen, and electricity industries. For them, CBAM appeared not...
Aluminium scrap has quietly become one of the most protected raw materials in the world specially in United States and the European Union — not through restrictions, but through deliberate exemptions. Washington has carved scrap out of Section 232 tariffs even as it tightened duties on primary...
In 2025, LME aluminium prices showed a volatile upward trend. From the beginning of the year to mid-March, prices remained relatively stable before retreating to around USD 2,400 per tonne in late March. After April, the market gradually stabilised and edged higher, until a new round of increases...
On Thursday, 13th November 202,5 at the ALFED Business Briefing, the Aluminium Federation (ALFED) and the Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade (CIOE&IT) announced a new joint whitepaper designed to help aluminium businesses navigate the complexities of international trade, from...
What began as a quiet movement of scrap out of Europe has gradually turned into a significant concern for the region’s aluminium recyclers. The volumes leaving the bloc have increased year after year, and the trend is now firmly visible in the export numbers. In 2020, the EU exported USD 1 billion...
Efforts by India and the European Union to finalise a long-discussed trade agreement before the end of the year have faced another obstacle, with Brussels preparing to turn down New Delhi’s request for an exemption from the EU’s carbon border tax. The disagreement over the carbon border adjustment...
Europe’s aluminium market is being squeezed from three sides at once: soaring premiums, a major smelter shutdown and the countdown to CBAM. Together, these pressures are tightening supply, inflating costs and reshaping trade flows across the continent as 2025 draws to a close. Premiums surge as...
Fastmarkets, the price reporting agency whose assessments underpin the London Metal Exchange’s (LME) physical aluminium trade, has proposed incorporating the cost of the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) directly into the aluminium P1020A benchmark premiums for Italy and...
All eyes are on the fourteenth round of EU-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations, scheduled on Monday, October 6, in Brussel, as it promises to build stronger ties of trade and economy between India and the European Union. However, there are a few challenges that have been hindering the...
AL Circle: European aluminium producers are facing a convergence of rising energy costs and CBAM enforcement. From your recent projects, what percentage of production cost do energy-intensive processes like smelting and refining represent? Can MetAllic's process redesign realistically tip the cost...
