USGS Mineral Yearbook - Aluminum and Bauxite chapters
Datadory delivers usgs mineral yearbook aluminum and bauxite chapters data covering the metal's deepest official record: thirteen tables per aluminum chapter with company-level US smelter capacity, scrap recovery by class, prices with LME references, bilateral trade by partner country, end-use shipments and world production by country, plus narrative on idled potlines and producer countries.
What this dataset is
USGS Mineral Yearbook - Aluminum and Bauxite chapters is the Aluminum catalog's deep-history record: the two Volume I (Metals and Minerals) chapters that treat the metal properly instead of compressing it onto a single page. An advance-release aluminum chapter runs to roughly twenty pages carrying thirteen statistical tables - salient statistics; primary annual production capacity in the United States by company; US consumption of and recovery from purchased new and old aluminum scrap by class; stocks, receipts and consumption of purchased scrap; secondary aluminum alloy production and shipments by independent smelters; distribution of end-use shipments of aluminum products across the United States and Canada; net shipments of wrought and cast products by producers; aluminum prices including LME spot references; exports and imports for consumption by class and by partner country; and primary world production by country. Around the tables sits narrative no number carries: which potlines sit idle and why, what government actions and legislation did about it, and country reviews of every major producer. The Bauxite and Alumina chapter runs the same treatment upstream to the ore.
What do USGS Mineral Yearbook rows look like?
Exactly as the rows land after cleaning - chapter and table, period, value, unit:
Chapter Series Period Value Unit
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Salient statistics US primary production 2021 889 thousand t
1 Salient statistics Production value 2021 2,714 million USD
1 Salient statistics Avg US market spot price 2021 138.5 cents/lb
1 Salient statistics World primary production 2021 67,500 thousand t
1 Salient statistics US primary production 2017 741 thousand t
1 Salient statistics Avg US market spot price 2017 98.3 cents/lb
2 Capacity by company Hawesville, KY works 2021 shut down since 2022
8 Prices LME spot reference 2021 $1.123/lb
10 Exports by country Leading US partner Canada
13 World production China share of world output 2021 58%Reading the rows: the move from 741 to 889 thousand tonnes of domestic primary production between 2017 and 2021 is exactly the kind of shift the company-level capacity table explains line by line - which works restarted, which went to care-and-maintenance, which idled a potline outright. World production of 67,500 thousand tonnes against 889 domestic is the frame the by-country table fills in: China alone held 58% of world output in 2021.
What fields does the dataset include?
Every column below is drawn from the chapter table set itself, definitions written against the printed table headers:
| Field | Type | Definition | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary production: Quantity | number | US primary aluminum smelter production, thousand metric tons. | 889 |
| Primary production: Value | number | Value of US primary production at the average US market price, millions of dollars. | $2,714 |
| Price, average, U.S. market, spot | number | Annual average US market spot price, cents per pound. | 138.5 |
| Stocks, December 31: Aluminum industry | number | Year-end industry stocks, thousand metric tons. | 1870 |
| Secondary recovery: New scrap / Old scrap | number | Metallic recovery from purchased, tolled or imported new and old scrap, expanded for full industry coverage. | 1780 |
| Exports, crude, semicrude, and scrap | number | Total US exports across crude, semicrude and scrap categories, thousand metric tons. | 2950 |
| Imports for consumption, crude and semicrude | number | US imports for consumption excluding scrap, thousand metric tons. | 4830 |
| World, production | number | World primary aluminum production, thousand metric tons; estimated values flagged where used. | 67500 |
| TABLE 2 - Primary annual production capacity by company | text | Company-by-company US smelter capacity, including idle potlines and care-and-maintenance status. | Hawesville, KY - temporarily shut down since 2022 |
| TABLE 8 - Aluminum prices | text | Price series including LME spot and annual average US market price references. | LME $1.123/lb (2021) |
| TABLE 10/12 - Exports/imports by country or locality | text | Bilateral US aluminum export and import flows by partner country, thousand metric tons. | Canada |
| TABLE 13 - World production by country | text | Primary aluminum production by country or locality with US rank and share context. | China 58% of world production |
| Additional fields | — | Folded under "additional fields on request": the narrative sections (domestic industry structure, government actions and legislation, events trends and issues, country reviews of major producers), the Bauxite and Alumina chapter's own table set, per-edition salient-statistics years beyond the two shown, and table-footnote text stating data cut-off dates. | on request |
Anything not typed above - the narrative sections, the ore-stage Bauxite and Alumina tables, footnote text stating cut-off dates - folds under additional fields on request. Ask and it ships with your sample.
How far does the coverage reach?
- Geography: United States in depth, with world primary production by country for all major producers; Canada appears inside the end-use shipment tables
- Temporal: each chapter carries roughly five years of salient statistics plus the subject year's narrative; yearbook editions run 2016 through 2023, with aluminum chapters present for 2019-2021 and Bauxite and Alumina for 2018-2022
- Granularity: national annual totals, company and facility level for US smelting capacity, bilateral country-level trade flows
No other record in the catalog pairs company-level American capacity with world production by country in one place - one-page federal summaries stop at national totals, and commercial price feeds carry no tonnage at all.
How is the data delivered?
API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
Pick the channel and the cadence; the rows arrive identical either way - cleaned, typed, and documented against the field dictionary above. The yearbook prints its figures rounded to no more than three significant digits inside typeset documents; Datadory hands you the underlying tables as structured columns, with footnote cut-off dates preserved as metadata so you know exactly how fresh each cell claimed to be.
Who uses this data, and for what
- Smelting and recycling operators - competitor capacity tracked company by company, including idle potlines and care-and-maintenance status, straight from the federal survey.
- Scrap processors and secondary smelters - recovery from purchased new versus old scrap by class, plus stocks and receipts, to size the secondary feedstock market.
- Trade and supply-chain analysts - bilateral export and import flows by product class and partner country, with Canada's role made explicit.
- Investors and quant researchers - annual average US market prices alongside LME spot references, next to the production tonnage that explains them.
- Market researchers and consultants - end-use shipment distributions across the United States and Canada for demand-side sizing decks.
- Journalists and academics - citable federal statistics with a stated survey basis, footnote cut-off dates and a named author on every chapter.
Notes and adjacent datasets
Methodology note - chapters are built from mandatory and voluntary industry surveys, and each table's footnotes state its data cut-off date and rounding convention. Treat sub-totals accordingly: figures are rounded to no more than three significant digits and explicitly may not add to totals.
Completeness note - not every commodity appears in every edition: the aluminum chapter shows up for 2019-2021 within the 2016-2023 edition range and Bauxite and Alumina for 2018-2022. Coverage gets checked per edition before anything ships.
Provenance note - every chapter carries a named author and a publication date, so each statistic has a traceable federal chain of custody rather than an aggregator's silent revision history.
Where to go next:
- USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries - Aluminum - the one-page companion view for quick national aggregates.
- USA Trade Online (US Census Bureau) - monthly bilateral trade detail extending the yearbook's annual by-country tables.
- The Aluminum Association Industry Statistics - the industry-association series behind the yearbook's stock and shipment figures.
- IndexMundi Aluminum Monthly Price - monthly price granularity between the yearbook's annual averages.
Field dictionary — USGS Mineral Yearbook - Aluminum and Bauxite chapters
| Field | Type | Definition | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary production: Quantity | number | US primary aluminum smelter production, thousand metric tons. | 889 |
| Primary production: Value | number | Value of US primary production at the average US market price, millions of dollars. | $2,714 |
| Price, average, U.S. market, spot | number | Annual average US market spot price, cents per pound. | 138.5 |
| Stocks, December 31: Aluminum industry | number | Year-end industry stocks, thousand metric tons. | 1870 |
| Secondary recovery: New scrap / Old scrap | number | Metallic recovery from purchased, tolled or imported new and old scrap, expanded for full industry coverage. | 1780 |
| Exports, crude, semicrude, and scrap | number | Total US exports across crude, semicrude and scrap categories, thousand metric tons. | 2950 |
| Imports for consumption, crude and semicrude | number | US imports for consumption excluding scrap, thousand metric tons. | 4830 |
| World, production | number | World primary aluminum production, thousand metric tons; estimated values flagged where used. | 67500 |
| TABLE 2 - Primary annual production capacity by company | text | Company-by-company US smelter capacity, including idle potlines and care-and-maintenance status. | Hawesville, KY - temporarily shut down since 2022 |
| TABLE 8 - Aluminum prices | text | Price series including LME spot and annual average US market price references. | LME $1.123/lb (2021) |
| TABLE 10/12 - Exports/imports by country or locality | text | Bilateral US aluminum export and import flows by partner country, thousand metric tons. | Canada |
| TABLE 13 - World production by country | text | Primary aluminum production by country or locality with US rank and share context. | China 58% of world production |
| Additional fields | — | Folded under "additional fields on request": the narrative sections (domestic industry structure, government actions and legislation, events trends and issues, country reviews of major producers), the Bauxite and Alumina chapter's own table set, per-edition salient-statistics years beyond the two shown, and table-footnote text stating data cut-off dates. | on request |
Questions buyers ask
What do the USGS Minerals Yearbook aluminum chapters contain?
Thirteen statistical tables per aluminum chapter: salient statistics, company-level US primary production capacity, scrap consumption and recovery by class, purchased-scrap stocks and receipts, secondary alloy output by independent smelters, end-use shipments for the US and Canada, wrought and cast shipments, prices with LME references, trade by class and country, and world production by country - wrapped in narrative industry analysis.
Does the data go below national totals?
Yes, at three levels. Company and facility level for US smelting capacity, including which potlines are idled or on care-and-maintenance; product-class level for scrap, exports and imports; and partner-country level for bilateral trade and world production, where China alone accounted for 58% of global output in 2021.
How far back does the history reach?
Each chapter presents roughly five years of salient statistics plus narrative for its subject year. Yearbook editions span 2016 through 2023, with the aluminum chapter published for 2019-2021 and the Bauxite and Alumina chapter for 2018-2022, so multi-year views assemble cleanly from consecutive editions.
How is this different from the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries?
The Commodity Summary gives aluminum one page of national aggregates. The Yearbook chapter gives the same subject roughly twenty pages: named companies and facilities, scrap classes, secondary smelter output, end-use shipment distributions, bilateral trade partners and country production reviews - the layer where competitive analysis actually happens.
How reliable are the printed figures?
Chapters are prepared from mandatory and voluntary industry surveys, and table footnotes state the cut-off date of included data - one 2022 table, for example, notes data available through July 13. Figures are rounded to no more than three significant digits and may not add to totals; Datadory keeps those caveats attached as metadata.
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