CRU: Aluminum news round-up

Golden Aluminum plans to upgrade its Fort Lupton, Colo., facility using the Nexcast – Next Generation Aluminum Mini Mill project. The process aims to reduce natural gas consumption, improve process efficiency, and recycle about 15% more mixed-grade aluminum scrap. This project is also projected to decrease air pollution through the use of low-nitrogen oxide (NOx) burners with a reduced carbon intensity of roughly 60% compared to industry average. The project is anticipated to take around four years to complete.

Argentina lifts 16-year ban on scrap metal exports

Buenos Aires has ended the block to foreign shipments of scrap and metallurgical waste of iron, steel, copper, aluminum and similar products introduced in 2009.

“This prohibition was harmful for several reasons,” Federico Sturzenegger, deregulation and state transformation minister, was quoted as saying by local media. “First, because by depressing the local price of waste it discouraged recycling… But it was harmful, above all, because it prohibited an endless number of recycling businesses from very broad sectors of the economy. We received countless messages from companies whose business was prohibited by the ban.”

He gave the example of copper cables discarded by telephone companies, which were in demand abroad but could not be exported. Sturzenegger described the ban as benefiting scrap processors to the detriment of those which produced it – typically smaller recycling companies.

First introduced in 2009 as a temporary measure intended to last for 180 days, the ban was regularly renewed. It came to an end under President Javier Milei’s government. The ban was brought in to increase domestic supply of scrap metals, thereby lowering prices to improve metal companies’ competitiveness as well as that of other businesses along the value chain. The main beneficiary was intended to be the steel industry.

Reacting to the export ban’s end, steel pipe producer Techint warned input costs could rise because of the need to import, if domestic scrap supply is reduced.

AA indicates surprising growth in extrusion shipments for November

The Aluminum Association released its latest shipment report for November. According to the report, shipments of extruded products by US and Canadian producers totaled 362.4 million pounds (164,000 t) during November 2024, up 3.9% year over year (y/y) and down 4.2% month over month (m/m). The year-to-date number up to November amounts to 4.1 billion pounds, which is still down 3.5% y/y.

The report marks an improvement from the growth of 1.4% reported in October and is the second consecutive month of growth after five months of contraction. Furthermore, the sector had only one month of growth last year, in April, with shipments then up by 2.4% y/y.

Before this, one has to go back to August 2022 to see monthly growth and this was limited to 0.5% y/y.

The report also contrasts with the one seen for sheet and plate right before Christmas, which showed a contraction of 7% y/y of shipments in November. Furthermore, the index of new orders of semis products for November released earlier in December also indicated weaker orders for November overall, including for extruded products. It is therefore too early to talk about a recovery in the US extrusions market yet, but this is a trend worth following.

New filter captures and recycles aluminum from manufacturing waste

MIT engineers have designed a nanofiltration process that could make aluminum production more efficient while reducing hazardous waste, according to a news story from MIT. Nanofiltration could potentially be used to process the waste from an aluminum plant and retrieve any aluminum ions that would otherwise have escaped in the effluent stream.

The captured aluminum could then be upcycled and added to the bulk of the produced aluminum, the statement says, increasing yield while simultaneously reducing waste. If scaled up and implemented in existing production facilities, the membrane technology could reduce the amount of wasted aluminum and improve the environmental quality of the waste that plants generate.

“This membrane technology not only cuts down on hazardous waste but also enables a circular economy for aluminum by reducing the need for new mining,” says John Lienhard from MIT. “This offers a promising solution to address environmental concerns while meeting the growing demand for aluminum.”

Service center acquired in US

Nebraska-based multi-metal processor Norfolk Iron & Metal has purchased Straub Metal International of Pennsylvania, which specializes in distributing stainless steel alloys. As both companies are family-run businesses, Straub Metal is a “great fit” for Norfolk’s growth and investment throughout the US, said president and chief operation officer Arnie Robinson.

Norfolk’s chain of service centers stretches from Washington state to New Jersey and provides value-added processing services and distribution of a wide variety of metals, primarily carbon steel, stainless steel and aluminum.

This analysis was first published by CRU. To learn about CRU’s global commodities research and analysis services, visit www.crugroup.com.