{"id":395602,"date":"2026-04-16T17:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/395602\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T17:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:49:14","slug":"middle-east-escalation-pushes-aluminium-into-a-structural-deficit-articles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/395602\/","title":{"rendered":"Middle East escalation pushes aluminium into a structural deficit | articles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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<p>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<p>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<p>Disruptions have intensified significantly since <a href=\"https:\/\/think.ing.com\/articles\/gulf-smelter-cuts-tighten-aluminium-outlook\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">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<p>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&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-395602","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}