China’s Alumina Import Window Has Remained Closed since January 18

At the 2026 SMM Indonesia Critical Minerals Conference, SMM VP Shirley Wang said Indonesia's aluminum industry is following nickel's trajectory roughly a decade behind: raw bauxite exporter in 2014, Chinese-backed smelting expansion using nickel's existing infrastructure in 2026, and a fully integrated domestic cluster with recycling targeted by 2036. Nickel's pre-built power grids, deepwater ports, and industrial parks have compressed aluminum project timelines from 5-7 years to 1-2 years. Electrolytic aluminum generates ~36x more gross profit per MWh than NPI, making it the priority dispatch choice under grid constraints. Globally, Africa holds the bauxite, Asia concentrates alumina, and smelting is geographically distributed with no single country dominant.

Aluminum associations from the United States, Europe, Canada and Japan highlighted OECD data showing that global aluminum-sector subsidies totaled USD118.3 billion during 2005-2024, with China accounting for USD101.4 billion, or 86% of the total. In 2024 alone, China received USD10.2 billion of the sector’s USD11.1 billion global subsidies. Industry groups noted that China’s share of global primary aluminum output has risen from 11% to 61% over the past two decades, with subsidy-supported growth extending into downstream processing and recycling. The associations called for coordinated measures, including import monitoring systems, tariff alignment and potential scrap export restrictions, to strengthen supply-chain security and support fair competition.