Alcoa Corp. and Century Aluminum Co., appear to be two of the major US beneficiaries of the Ministry of Finance's sanctions against RUSAL and seven other firms affiliated with Deripaska. The US import duties on aluminum imports will also give local producers an advantage over competitors.
Shares of both US companies rose more than 10 percent from March 29, and aluminum prices on the London Metal Exchange rose.
"If the US uses all its capacities that are not currently used, we can cover our imports," said Jorge Vazquez, Managing Director of Harbor Intelligence, in a telephone interview. "But each plant must undergo a reboot, and each line will need to be restarted."
This would be a turning point for the industry that was destroyed as a result of discontinuation in states such as South Carolina and Kentucky, while Chinese light metal production jumped, which led to a drop in world prices.
Alcoa produced about 360,000 tons of aluminum in the US in 2017 - and this volume will grow to about 520,000, as the Warrick plant in Indiana will restart, "said Justin Bergner, an analyst at Gabelli & Co.. The company also produces about 650,000 tons of aluminum in Canada, two thirds of which will be in the US
All lines
Century wants to return to 150,000 tons of annual production. It will begin commissioning one of the three idle lines at its Hawesville, Kentucky plant, and all three lines will be operational about nine months after.
According to information from Harbor Intelligence, RUSAL supplied about 700,000 tons of aluminum annually in the US, which should have been somehow compensated. American researchers have estimated that if the United States restarted all its idle capacity, this could give an additional 753,000 tons - but this process will take at least a year.
According to Morgan Stanley, for Alcoa, every additional 2 cents per pound in the price of aluminum means about $ 50 million in additional income (before interest, taxes, write-offs and depreciation).
