Aluminium Ingot
Primary aluminium cast into standard ingot form right after smelting, the base metal shape re-melted by foundries, rolling mills and extruders to make other aluminium products.
Covered in 2 MetalsCost.com News Intelligence articles, most recently on August 27, 2026.
Overview
Aluminium ingot is primary aluminium metal cast into a standard block or bar shape right after it comes out of the smelter — the basic tradeable unit the metal takes before it's processed further into sheet, extrusions, wire or castings. It's essentially unfinished aluminium in its most concentrated, storable form: what a smelter produces, and what a rolling mill, extruder or foundry buys as raw material.
How It's Manufactured
Ingot production is the final step of primary smelting. Alumina is dissolved in molten cryolite and electrolyzed in the Hall-Héroult process, which uses a large amount of electricity to strip oxygen from the aluminium oxide, depositing molten metal at the bottom of the electrolytic cell, or pot. This metal is periodically tapped, alloyed and treated in a holding furnace to adjust composition and remove impurities, then cast into ingots, sows or T-bars on continuous or semi-continuous casting equipment before cooling and stacking for shipment.
Byproducts
Smelting produces spent pot lining, a hazardous waste containing fluoride compounds from the electrolytic cell's carbon lining, which requires specialized treatment or disposal. Dross — an oxide-rich skim that forms on molten metal during casting and traps some usable aluminium — is another byproduct, and it's usually processed further to recover the trapped metal rather than discarded outright. The electrolysis reaction also generates small amounts of perfluorocarbon gases, a greenhouse-gas emission the industry has worked to reduce through tighter process control.
Who Consumes It
Rolling mills buy ingot, typically in slab form, to roll into sheet, coil and foil; extruders buy billet-form ingot to push through dies into profiles; and foundries buy ingot to remelt and cast into shaped parts like engine blocks and wheels. Wire and cable manufacturers are another buyer, remelting ingot into rod for drawing into wire. Essentially, every downstream aluminium product category — rolled, extruded and cast — starts from ingot.
Everyday Uses
Consumers never buy aluminium ingot directly, but it's the starting point for nearly every aluminium object in daily life: it gets remelted and reshaped into beverage cans, cookware, foil, window frames, car parts and appliance housings. Ingot's relevance to daily life is entirely indirect — it's the raw material one processing step removed from the finished goods people actually handle.
Industrial Uses
Beyond remelting for rolling and extrusion, billet-form ingot feeds direct-chill casting operations that produce large-diameter logs for aerospace and heavy engineering parts. Foundry alloy ingots, cast with specific silicon and copper content, are remelted for sand and die casting of automotive components like engine blocks and transmission housings. Ingot's standardized weights and purities also make it the physical form aluminium is quoted and traded in on commodity exchanges like the LME.
Coverage
Aluminium Stockpiles Hit a Multi-Decade Low as Gulf War Disruption Squeezes Supply
LME aluminium stocks have halved in 2026 to 246,925 tonnes, the lowest in the exchange's 18-year public record, as Gulf war damage to smelters and a Mozambique plant closure squeeze supply.
LME Aluminium Stocks Sink to a 36-Year Low as Iran-Linked Gulf Supply Loss Nears 2 Million Tonnes
LME aluminium stocks have collapsed to a 36-year low of 250,000 tonnes as Gulf production losses near 2 million tonnes annualized, with 95% of remaining metal Russian-origin.
