Aluminium Scrap

Taint/Tabor, 6063 extrusion, Zorba, Twitch and wheels

Aluminium scrap prices on alloy content and on how much metal survives the furnace. Clean 6063 extrusion is the premium of the everyday grades because it is a single, low-copper wrought alloy that a billet caster can charge almost directly — which is why the copper ceiling, usually 0.10%, belongs in the contract. Taint/Tabor is the mixed old sheet and painted siding grade, still wrought but carrying coatings and a wider alloy spread, so it discounts and suits general remelt rather than a controlled billet. Troma alloy wheels are a cast grade with good, consistent chemistry once the steel weights and valve stems are off. Tense is aluminium-copper radiator material and prices on the copper it carries as much as the aluminium. Then there are the shredder products: Zorba is the mixed non-ferrous fraction from auto and appliance shredding, typically 55–75% aluminium with the balance in copper, zinc, brass, stainless and residue, and it is bought on an assay of a sampled lot rather than on a name. Twitch is Zorba that has been through sink-float separation and comes out at roughly 95% aluminium — cleaner, dearer and much closer to a furnace-ready charge.

The unglamorous variables decide the economics. Melt loss is the first: thin, painted or oxidised material has a high surface-area-to-mass ratio and burns off, so a nominal tonne of light sheet delivers materially less liquid metal than a tonne of extrusion. Moisture is the second, and it is a safety issue as much as a commercial one — wet scrap charged into molten aluminium causes violent steam explosions, so cargoes are contracted dry and inspected for it. Iron attachments, dirt, plastic and free-standing turnings all count against payable weight, and turnings deserve their own line item because oil content and fines make them a different purchase from solids. Pricing references the LME aluminium cash settlement at a discount that widens with alloy uncertainty and preparation cost, which is why an assayed Zorba lot and a spec-clean 6063 lot can differ by hundreds of dollars a tonne. We source from extruders, fabricators, shredder operators, demolition and automotive dismantling across the Gulf, Europe, the UK and North America, with XRF verification, radiation certification, SGS or Intertek supervision at stuffing and 18–22 MT per 20ft container depending on grade and density.