Alcoa Seeing Order Uptick From Iran War Worries

Buyers of aluminum have been knocking on Alcoa Corp.’s doors for metal that they’re afraid they may not soon get from Middle East smelters, the company’s CFO told investors March 17.

“We’re actually seeing an uptick in orders from customers and inquiries related to second quarter and the second half of the year,” Mollie Beerman said at the JPMorgan Industrials Conference 2026 in Washington, D.C. “They’re now worried about getting supply for the second half. So we do have additional spot orders coming in, and that should help us […] later in the year.”

Beerman said the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has not hurt demand for Alcoa’s products or for its customers’ businesses. But they have severely hamstrung aluminum smelters in the Middle East, she added. Those facilities produce about 7 million metric tons of aluminum and account for about 9% of the world’s aluminum supply. With their products unable to leave the region, prices have surged more than 10% from a month ago and Beerman said that should quickly show up in Alcoa’s bottom line.

Alcoa teams, Beerman said, “are proactively repositioning inventory into the U.S.” to meet the added demand while also working around some of the impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs. But moving around product that was originally destined for elsewhere, she added, will push about $150 million in sales and roughly $30 million in EBITDA into the second quarter from the first.

In addition to reiterating that Alcoa’s business and the aluminum market overall have retained their solid momentum from late 2025, Beerman also said that higher commodity prices mean “tariffs are not harmful any longer” to Alcoa’s bottom line. Prices have risen enough now to also cover tariff costs on the metal the company produces in Canada.

Beerman’s comments about the overall demand environment holding up were echoed at the JPMorgan gathering by 3M Co. Chairman and CEO Bill Brown. Asked about volume growth trends early in 2026, Brown said 3M teams have seen order rates “remain pretty healthy” and that backlogs for industrial products such as abrasives and electrical items are growing.

Those types of goods, along with safety products, make up about 60% of 3M’s sales. The other 40% that includes consumer products and electronics has been “a bit softer,” Brown told the conference, and his team is “watching very carefully” the state of things in the automotive sector that accounts for about 8% of 3M revenues.

“Industrial has been pretty good. It’s been pretty resilient,” Brown summed up the big picture. “It’s actually picking up a little bit as we get into March. So we feel good about industrial. We just have to watch the other parts.”