Aluminum Price History: Monthly Global Price Since 1992

Aluminium is the second most-used metal after steel, central to transport, packaging, construction, and the energy transition. It is among the most electricity-intensive commodities to produce — smelting is essentially “congealed electricity” — so its price is unusually sensitive to power costs. This dataset reproduces the “Aluminum” column of the World Bank Pink Sheet, in US dollars per metric ton, with continuous coverage since January 1992. The price is the monthly average of the London Metal Exchange (LME) settlement price, or the cash price before 2005. China produces over half of world output.

Dataset: Aluminum Price (1992–2026) · Updated 2026-09-01

Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.

Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet) · CC BY 4.0

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Dataset Variables

The CSV and Excel files contain the following columns. Each row represents one calendar month.

Column names match the CSV headers exactly.

Download the Complete Dataset

The full dataset is available in CSV and Excel formats — monthly observations covering more than three decades.

Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.

Source Data Access: World Bank Pink Sheet

The underlying series is the “Aluminum” column of the Monthly Prices sheet in the World Bank’s Commodity Price Data, known as the Pink Sheet. The World Bank publishes it as a monthly Excel workbook on its commodity markets page, under a CC BY 4.0 licence that requires attribution to the World Bank.

The Eco3min dataset reproduces that column unmodified from January 1992, in US dollars per metric ton, in a stable CSV with a fixed column name for direct use in Python, R or any data pipeline. The URL never changes, which makes it suitable for automated scripts.

Direct CSV Access — Eco3min Structured Dataset

https://eco3min.fr/dataset/aluminum-price.csv

This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool.

Using the Dataset in Python

import pandas as pd

url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/aluminum-price.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])

print(df.head())
print(df["aluminum_price"].describe())

df.plot(x="date", y="aluminum_price", title="Aluminum Price", legend=False)

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/aluminum-price.csv"
df <- read_csv(url)

head(df)
summary(df$aluminum_price)

Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL — no download or API key required.

Methodology

The World Bank reports the aluminium price in US dollars per metric ton for unalloyed primary ingots on the London Metal Exchange (LME), high grade, minimum 99.7% purity. The price is the LME settlement price from 2005 and the cash price before.

Values are monthly averages, which smooth the intra-month swings visible in daily futures and physical quotes. The Eco3min file starts in January 1992, while the Pink Sheet column goes back to 1960.

An Eco3min pipeline on GitHub Actions reads the Pink Sheet workbook after each monthly release, keeps the column unmodified and regenerates the CSV, Excel and JSON files and the page metadata. The World Bank updates the Pink Sheet on the second business day of each month.

Data Quality & Provider Notes

The Pink Sheet price is a widely cited reference for the physical market. A few provider-specific points matter when using this series.

• Release latency. The World Bank publishes the Pink Sheet on the second business day of each month, with the average of the month just ended. Eco3min refreshes the file after each release. The series is not a real-time price.
• Monthly average vs futures spot. This series is a monthly average. It will differ from any single exchange settlement, and a monthly average necessarily understates intra-month peaks.
• Revisions. Prices are market-derived and are not revised like survey-based macro series, but the World Bank can correct recent months or replace a series, and it lists those changes in the notes of the Pink Sheet workbook.
• Source change on 30 September 2026. Until that date this file reproduced another publisher’s series; the whole history was then rebuilt from the Pink Sheet column, so figures downloaded earlier can differ slightly.
• Price basis change in 2005. The Pink Sheet uses the LME settlement price from 2005 and the LME cash price before, so the price definition changes within the file.
• Alternative sources. The LME publishes daily prices, and the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) quotes its own contracts: both give higher-frequency or contract-specific quotes.

Common Pitfalls When Using This Series

1. Confusing nominal and real prices. This series is nominal. Comparing an early-1990s reading to a recent one without adjusting for cumulative inflation overstates the real change. Deflating by CPI gives the true purchasing-power move.
2. Reading the monthly average as a market price. Headlines quote exchange futures; this dataset reports the monthly benchmark average. The two diverge most during fast-moving rallies.
3. Unit confusion. This series is the monthly average of the LME settlement price (the cash price before 2005) in US dollars per metric ton; US transaction prices add a regional Midwest premium, and SHFE (Shanghai) quotes differ.

Historical Regimes

1992–2003 — Low and cyclical. Growing smelter capacity kept aluminium in a low range, between about $1,040 per ton (November 1993) and $2,060 (January 1995).

2004–2008 — China boom. Surging Chinese demand and high energy costs lifted aluminium to a then-record of about $3,070 per ton in July 2008.

2009–2020 — Surplus and range. Massive Chinese smelting capacity kept prices range-bound despite cost pressure, between about $1,330 per ton (February 2009) and $2,680 (April 2011).

2021–2022 — Energy-crisis record. Europe’s energy crisis idled smelters and Russia’s invasion threatened Rusal supply, driving the monthly average to a then-record of about $3,500 per ton in March 2022.

2023–2026 — Normalisation, then a new record. Easing energy prices and steady Chinese supply pulled prices back to about $2,140 per ton in August 2023. The monthly average passed its 2022 peak in April 2026 and set a record of about $3,670 in May 2026.

Related Macroeconomic Datasets

Commodity Price Hub

This dataset is part of the Eco3min commodity price repository: energy, metals, agricultural softs and grains, most of them from the World Bank Pink Sheet.

Explore the Commodity Price Hub

Sources

• World Bank: Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), Monthly Prices, column “Aluminum” (CC BY 4.0)
• London Metal Exchange (LME) settlement price, the market basis of the Pink Sheet series

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). Aluminum Price — Global Monthly Price (1992-2026). Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), CC BY 4.0.<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/aluminum-price-history-dataset/