Aluminum Makers Feel Sanctions
Submitted by guest (not verified) on Wed, 01/16/2019 - 16:01The Trump administration's aluminum tariffs are aimed at boosting U.S. producers' profits. But another move by the administration — sanctions against Russian aluminum giant United Co. Rusal and its founder Oleg Deripaska — is having the opposite effect.
The sanctions have pushed up prices for aluminum's key ingredient, alumina, eating into the profits of U.S. producers, analysts and aluminum makers say. It takes about two tons of alumina to make one ton of aluminum, and companies that had purchased the white powdery material from Rusal, which makes 6% of the world's alumina, have scrambled for supplies