{"id":403248,"date":"2026-04-17T10:49:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T10:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/403248\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T10:49:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T10:49:33","slug":"middle-east-escalation-pushes-aluminium-into-a-structural-deficit-articles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/403248\/","title":{"rendered":"Middle East escalation pushes aluminium into a structural deficit | articles"},"content":{"rendered":"

The aluminium market has moved into a significant deficit following further escalation in the Middle East. What initially appeared as a disruption to shipping and logistics has now evolved into a material supply shock, with multiple Gulf smelters operating well below capacity.<\/p>\n

Recent developments include the halt of operations at Emirates Global Aluminium\u2019s Al Taweelah smelter, a sharp reduction in output at Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), and continued reduced operating rates at Qatalum.<\/p>\n

While the Middle East accounts for roughly 9% of global aluminium production, it represents a much larger share of seaborne supply. As a result, disruptions in the region have a significant impact on market availability and pricing.<\/p>\n

Disruptions have intensified significantly since our previous note<\/a>. In mid-March, we estimated that around 560kt of annual capacity was affected, including roughly 300kt at Alba and 260kt at Qatalum. With Alba now operating at around 30% of capacity and Qatalum at roughly 60%, the implied affected capacity has risen to around 3Mt \u2013 nearly half of the region\u2019s production.<\/p>\n

Based on current operating rates, the aluminium market would be in a deficit of close to 2.9Mt if disruptions persisted through the remainder of the year. However, at elevated prices, we expect demand destruction, destocking and a partial supply response from China to offset part of the supply shock, resulting in a base case deficit of around 2Mt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The aluminium market has moved into a significant deficit following further escalation in the Middle East. What initially…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60],"class_list":["post-403248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}