At this year’s Steel Success Strategies conference in Miami, the expert steel automotive panel delved into the risks and opportunities facing steel in automotive production

Norwegian aluminium company Norsk Hydro announced a fresh wave of investments on Thursday July 7, expanding the company’s use of post-consumer scrap and focusing on meeting low-carbon aluminium demand from the European automotive industry

The alumina sector is continuing to grapple with rising costs and weakening market conditions, while the Atlantic differential could switch direction due to refinery production cuts and aluminium smelter closures, sources told Fastmarkets.

For 35 years, aluminium buyers, sellers and traders from all over the world have come together at the International Aluminium Conference to kick off the mating season. In the lobby and networking spaces of this event, careful negotiations take place between consumers looking to secure supply, traders looking for arbitrage windows and producers looking for long-term deals.This year’s mating season won’t be like any other. Here are three big reasons why.

Alcoa will reduce production at its San Ciprián alumina plant in Spain because of high natural gas prices, it said late last week.

Surging energy prices in Europe have led to fresh concerns about aluminium production across the continent, with market participants mulling the possibility of additional smelter cuts

As the world-wide push to electrify transport gains momentum, potential pitfalls have become apparent. The large-scale charging of electric vehicles, for example, risks overloading power grids and may not be sustainable, battery innovator Dr. Avishek Kumar told Fastmarkets in an interview

Europe’s base metals market has been plagued by logistical issues for the majority of 2022, and the most recent strike by workers at the Port of Hamburg in Germany will add to these woes, participants told Fastmarkets

The United States’ largest primary aluminium producer, Century Aluminum, will close its biggest US smelter for up to a year due to “soaring energy prices,” the company announced on Wednesday June 22

Sentiment in the base metals markets in Europe was turning increasingly bearish, a number of participants told Fastmarkets on Tuesday June 21, with macro-economic uncertainties creating additional caution among consumers with the approach of the seasonal summer slowdown