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Alcoa digs up bauxite, turns it into alumina, and smelts it into aluminum that factories and builders buy.
Alcoa is a metals company that makes the raw aluminum that goes into cars, airplanes, soda cans, window frames, and countless other products. It runs the whole chain from the ground up: it mines bauxite ore, refines that ore into a white powder called alumina, and then smelts the alumina into shiny aluminum metal at gigantic plants that use enormous amounts of electricity.
The company is split into two main pieces. One segment handles bauxite mining and alumina refining, selling that white powder both to Alcoa's own smelters and to outside customers. The other segment smelts aluminum and casts it into ingots and other shapes for industrial buyers. Aluminum is one of the most recycled materials on earth, and Alcoa also runs a casting business that melts scrap and turns it into finished parts. What makes aluminum interesting is that it barely exists in pure form in nature. You can't dig up a chunk of it. Bauxite has to be chemically cooked into alumina, and then that alumina is zapped with so much electricity that the metal separates out. That electricity bill is the single biggest cost in smelting, which is why aluminum plants cluster near cheap power sources like hydroelectric dams. Alcoa has struggled at times with volatile power prices and global metal prices that swing wildly.
Alcoa's customers are carmakers, aerospace companies, construction firms, and packaging makers, and it competes with giants like Rio Tinto and Century Aluminum. The company has sold off non-core businesses over the years to focus on mining, refining, and smelting, and it pays attention to returning cash to shareholders. In 2024 it struck a deal to acquire Alumina Limited, its longtime joint-venture partner in the alumina business, consolidating control over that supply chain.
Saved answer 路 last researched 15 Nov 2026