Canada turns from U.S. to Europe as Iran war propels aluminum higher

Workers inspect sheets of stainless steel after being pressed from coils, at Magna Stainless and Aluminum in Montreal on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov

LONDON, May 27 - Canada is pushing more of its aluminum towards Europe to make the most of higher premiums on offer, after its neighbor the United States imposed a 50 per cent tariff on the metal last year.

A loss of Middle East volumes due to the Iran war has hit Europe hardest and intensified competition with the U.S. for low-carbon supply, driving prices to extreme levels, with policy and prices determining where scarce aluminum is shipped, analysts, traders and aluminum industry sources said.

Disruption in the Middle East, which accounts for nine per cent of global aluminum smelting capacity, has upended trade flows far beyond the Gulf, industry sources told Reuters.

An ensuing tug-of-war is playing out in regional physical market premiums U.S. and European buyers pay above the London Metal Exchange benchmark CMAL3 for aluminum, which is used in everything from cars and beer cans to building materials.

“We are in a situation where the Europeans and the Americans are competing for limited aluminum units,” said Bank of America analyst Michael Widmer.

Duty-paid aluminum premiums in Europe have surged 73 per cent since the start of the Iran war to a record US$621 a metric ton earlier this month, while the U.S. Midwest premium last week hit an all-time high of US$1.16 per lb, or US$2,557 a ton.

Gregory Wittbecker, president at Wittsend Commodity Advisors, estimates the U.S. Midwest premium needs to rise to at least US$1.20 a lb or US$2,645 a ton for Canadian producers to divert supply back from Europe.

With LME prices CMAL3 around US$3,670 a ton, U.S. consumers are paying US$6,200 a ton for their aluminum while in Europe the cost has jumped to US$4,300 a tonne.

“The European premium is an incentive for Canadians to push metal east,” said Wittbecker.

Netbacks make EU attractive

The U.S. was traditionally the default destination for aluminum from Canada, which exported a total of nearly 2.6 million tons of unwrought aluminum metal and alloys last year, Trade Data Monitor figures showed.

But after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on imports, Canadian producers began to divert metal to Europe.

TDM data shows Canadian aluminum accounted for 54 per cent of U.S. imports in the first quarter of this year, down from 63 per cent in the same period last year and 75 per cent in the first three months of 2024.

One reason for this is the so-called netback to producers, which refers to how much profit is actually made after deducting transport, tariffs and other costs from the selling price.

“When comparing U.S. and EU prices from an export perspective one has to shave off the portion going to the U.S. Treasury in tariffs to get to comparable netbacks,” Jean Simard, president of the Aluminium Association of Canada, told Reuters.

“This is why the EU option remains attractive to Canada, adding pressure on the U.S. market,” Simard added.

Canadian aluminum exports to the European Union ranged between 6 per cent and 40 per cent of the monthly totals between April 2025 and March 2026, compared with near zero in the first quarter of last year, TDM data showed.

Data for Canada’s April aluminum exports is not yet available, but industry sources expect it to confirm the trend of rising exports to Europe and falling shipments to the U.S.

Europe’s aluminum deficit

Bank of America’s Widmer estimates Europe faces a 5.6 million-ton aluminum deficit in 2026, versus a global shortfall of 2.2 million tons and a 3.8 million-ton U.S. deficit.

Last year, Europe imported around 1.3 million tons or 21 per cent of its primary and alloyed aluminum from the Middle East, TDM data shows, and its loss comes in addition to the phasing out of Russian aluminum by the EU and the mothballing of South32’s S32.AX Mozal smelter in Mozambique.

Even before the Iran war began with U.S.-Israeli strikes on February 28, Canadian shipments to Europe jumped 276 per cent from 2024 levels to more than 590,000 tons last year, while deliveries to the U.S. fell 25 per cent to around two million tons, TDM data shows.

Reporting by Pratima Desai and Polina Devitt; Additional reporting by Tom Daly; Editing by Veronica Brown and Alexander Smith