With the continued expansion of aluminium processing and downstream industries in Southeast Asia, regional aluminium billet production, consumption and trade markets have attracted growing attention. Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam are not only important aluminium billet production and consumption hubs in Southeast Asia, but also play a key role in regional aluminium billet trade flows. Markets such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Cambodia, meanwhile, are still at a stage where local processing capacity development and demand for imported aluminium billet are growing simultaneously.
Since March 2026, the escalation of geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East has caused significant disruption to the global aluminium supply chain. On the one hand, uncertainty over the supply of primary aluminium and aluminium processed products from the Middle East has increased, pushing up procurement interest in primary aluminium, aluminium billet and secondary aluminium resources across Asian markets outside China. On the other hand, fluctuations in crude oil prices and ocean freight costs have further lifted regional aluminium processing and trading costs. Against this backdrop, LME aluminium prices, Asian regional premiums and Southeast Asian local aluminium billet processing fees have all fluctuated to varying degrees.
At the same time, changes in the SHFE/LME price ratio have periodically affected the export arbitrage window for Chinese aluminium processed products. When overseas aluminium prices are stronger than domestic prices and export margins improve, Chinese aluminium processed products and some processing-trade resources show greater willingness to flow into the Southeast Asian market, creating certain disruptions to local billet supply-demand dynamics and quotations. When the price spread narrows, however, regional pricing returns to a framework driven jointly by local supply, imports from the Middle East and other overseas resources.