We have a Aluminium smelter in NZ & source Aluminia from Aussie.
Over the last 15 yrs theres been lots of brand new smelters made, extensions of old smelters & a tighten up of the materials shipping part of the deal.
During the late 90's & early 2000's there was a Aluminium war in Russia & people were getting kidnapped & assassinations & such.
Real live Mafia stuff.
Now theres a bit of a oversupply of Ali, as well as a very efficient recycling business.
The oversupply from Russia (cutting each others throats, sic) & increased production in Canada & NZ.
More small smelters made where they get Cryolite from (Iceland or something, easy to dam a fiord near a cryolite mine & build a hydroelectric station & then a Ali smelter there so they can ship materials in both directions).
They key to Ali is the cost of power to the smelters, that changes the price lots.
During the Enron thing Ali went up in $ as electricity got more expensive.
Smelters also use Pitch, a thick dark tar & carbon in their anodes & cathodes, that $ goes up when oil does too.
Dedicated pitch mines drop the price again & offset some petrol production as well.
Very very interesting market the Ali one is, easy to do the math on.
On the good side, anything made of Ali, boats & truck tankers & lawnmowers etc etc has a noninflation aspect to their manufacture & supply.
Expect there to be more stuff made from Ali, & more recycling of it.
Once Ali is made, it can be recycled 12 times using the same amount of electricity that they used to make it in the first place.
Glass & Ali take the same amount of electricity to make per kg. Glass only gets used once.
Ali 12 times.
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