Global aluminium production has nearly tripled since the turn of the millennium, and the ripple effects are being felt most clearly in the dry bulk market, where seaborne bauxite trade hit a fresh record last year.
Analysis by Ursa Shipbrokers, drawing on data from the International Aluminium Institute (IAI), shows global primary aluminium output reached an all-time high of 73.8m tonnes in 2025, edging up 1.1% year-on-year. That marks a 199% increase compared with 2000, underlining how deeply aluminium has embedded itself across transport, construction, power infrastructure and consumer goods.
Behind that growth sits one dominant player. China has driven almost all of the expansion, lifting its primary aluminium output sixteenfold since 2000. At the start of the century, Chinese smelters accounted for just 11% of global production. By 2025, that share had climbed to around 60%, or roughly 44.2m tonnes.
Output growth elsewhere has been far more muted. Production outside China rose steadily in the early 2000s but has remained largely flat since the mid-2000s, leaving the global aluminium supply chain increasingly centred on Chinese demand.
Primary aluminium production relies on alumina, which is refined from bauxite. As aluminium output has surged, so too has demand for the raw material — and the ships that move it.
Ursa estimates global seaborne bauxite loadings reached around 246.6m tonnes in 2025, a record level and a jump of nearly 42m tonnes, or 21%, from the previous year. The growth has turned bauxite into one of the standout dry bulk cargo stories of recent years.
Looking back to 2016, when global bauxite loadings stood at about 78.5m tonnes, volumes have grown at an estimated compound annual rate of close to 14%, reflecting both rising aluminium output and China’s growing reliance on imported ore.
Supply remains highly concentrated. Guinea accounted for roughly 73% of global bauxite loadings in 2025, cementing its position as the world’s — and China’s — main long-haul supplier. Australia followed with around 18%, meaning the two countries together supplied more than 90% of seaborne bauxite volumes.
On the demand side, China dominated imports, receiving an estimated 88% of all bauxite cargoes loaded onto dry bulk carriers last year to feed its vast alumina refining system.
With Chinese aluminium output running close to — and in some data marginally above — Beijing’s 45m tonne annual production cap, the aluminium-bauxite trade looks set to remain a central driver of tonne-mile demand, even as broader dry bulk markets wrestle with slower growth elsewhere.
