Century Aluminum

US tariffs on imported aluminum have pushed the Midwest Premium to 2,400 dollars per ton, which is essentially free money added to every ton Century sells domestically. Sales jumped 19% to nearly 1.9 billion dollars in the first nine months of 2025, and the company is restarting its Mt. Holly smelter to add 50,000 tons of annual capacity by mid-2026.

Global aluminum supply is running a 2 million ton deficit, and China is bumping against its government-imposed production cap of 45 million tons. That means prices should stay elevated even without tariffs. Century also received a 500 million dollar Department of Energy grant to build a brand new US smelter, the first built in America in over 50 years.

Century's stock price follows aluminum prices almost perfectly. When aluminum crashed in 2015 and 2020, the stock cratered too. The company has almost no pricing power because it sells a commodity, and if tariffs get rolled back or the global economy slows, margins could evaporate quickly.

At current prices, Century trades at over 60 times earnings, which is extremely expensive for a commodity company. Their Iceland smelter had major transformer failures that shut down 30% of capacity for nearly a year. And Glencore controls over 40% of shares and is both their biggest supplier and biggest customer, creating heavy dependence on one partner.