AMU survey results: November lead times ease

This analysis walks through the lead-time shifts across products, relating them to respondents’ role and end markets.

Lead times by the numbers

All lead times contracted in November from the previous month, both by product grouping and by product type, except for “P1020 or high-purity ingot” within the primary aluminum product grouping.

Sheet

When the November lead time figures are averaged across all participants, common alloy sheet sits at roughly six weeks, auto body sheet dropped to the mid-five-week range and can sheet settled near three-and-a-half weeks.

It also mirrors a trend seen over the past several months: Can sheet continues to post the shortest lead times, while common alloy has reverted to being the longest-lead sheet product instead of auto body sheet, which skyrocketed in October. Common alloy sheet and auto body sheet have switch positions every month since the survey first started tracking lead times.

The consistency between the individualized responses and the aggregated historical averages suggests the easing in sheet lead times is not respondent-specific noise but an upstream shift.

It’s interesting to note—as will be discussed later in more detail—even though can sheet lead times contracted in November and remain the shortest-lead-time product of any category, respondents serving the packaging end market largely reported “extending” or “stable” lead times.

This alignment between individualized responses and aggregated historical averages still holds at the product level even though some respondent groups, most notably packaging participants, reported general lead-time sentiment that does not match their upstream product’s actual lead-time trend.

Primary/extrusions

The contraction of lead times in for extrusions was the most pronounced. Mill-finished 6063 extrusion lead times shrunk by more than 50% month to month, while mill-finished 6061 extrusion lead times narrowed by a little more than a week and a half, to create a combined average of four weeks, down by nearly three weeks from October.

Primary products, though posting the least magnanimous month-to-month lead time adjustments, complicate the broader narrative. The historical data shows primary billet easing from to 4.25 weeks from 5.7 weeks in October, while P1020 and high-purity ingot ticked up slightly to 4.25 weeks from 4 over the same period.

This group was an example of where the individualized November responses do not behave in a uniform way across roles.

Producers report some of the shortest wait times for both billet and P1020. Meanwhile, manufacturers and assemblers report mid-three-week windows.

The remaining company types noted much longer lead times for billet and ingot. In one case, a respondent saw it as the longest-lead product in the survey, reporting delivery timelines as wide as 9-11 weeks.

One aspect that runs counter to expectations when comparing primary aluminum to the sheet and extrusion categories is that sheet/extrusion products are generally midstream from billet and ingot.

Primary billet fell by roughly a week and a half, which is directionally consistent with the easing seen in 6061 extrusion lead times. Meanwhile, 6063 extrusions dropped by an even larger margin and drives most of the overall contraction in the extrusion category.

A sharp adjustment in billet lead times can have an amplified effect on midstream extrusion categories, though typically it’d be seen in the opposite direction: Longer lead times for feedstock having an outsized impact for the lead times on products further midstream.

When the disproportionate adjustment in lead times is in the other direction—shrinking—it often signals an external factor weighing on demand for that specific product. In other words, in 6063 extrusion’s case, the drop is so much steeper than that of billet that it likely reflects more than upstream adjustments.

In a tangential upstream-to-midstream disconnect, the slight extension of P1020 and high-purity ingot lead times against a backdrop of contracting sheet lead times is notable.

One of the potential explanations for this dynamic could be explained by the way the P1020 market actually trades outside of the terminal markets, like the London Metal Exchange.

Most P1020 is bought on contract, not on spot, and spot lead times only shift when mills or traders have a reason to sell prompt metal or when buyers are actively seeking alternatives outside of their contractual flows.

But business has been soft enough that there has likely been very limited spot activity to reset those dynamics.

P1020 has been sitting at a four-week lead time for several consecutive months, and the only real change in November is a marginal uptick of roughly a quarter week.

That increase is minor in absolute terms, yet it stands out because it is the only primary or semi-fabricated product that did not move sharply lower in the most recent month.

So, while the sheet market is responding to operational and demand-side easing, the P1020 market is showing the inertia of a product that won’t move until the spot market does.

Supply/demand

The clearest shift between October and November is in how respondents describe demand for their own products and services. The share reporting declining demand jumped from 31% in October to 45% in November—the highest share since that question was introduced in March—while “improving” slid to just 14%, the lowest since April, right after the Section 232 aluminum tariff hike had its first full month of impact.

The movement was not incremental. Responses jumped decisively into the negative category. This shows a shift from mixed sentiment to a clearer consensus that demand is softening.

On the supply side, the share answering “yes” to whether new US supply of semi-fabricated and primary aluminum products was keeping up with demand also increased meaningfully, displacing many respondents that previously answered “no.”

While this could, in another context, be read as a sign that new capacity, restarts, or logistical efficiencies are finally taking hold, the surrounding conditions in recent months point to a different interpretation.

With steep tariffs suppressing the flow of imported material, several domestic assets taken offline by closures or unplanned outages, and lead times by aluminum product type falling after spiking higher in September and October, respondents’ increased confidence that supply is keeping up likely says more about cooling demand than meaningful new availability.

Lead time by company type and end market

The ample supply dynamic may reinforce the belief that purchases can be deferred without penalty—a signal that weak demand is giving buyers greater confidence that material will still be accessible later.

That said, the survey’s general question on lead times, which is answered by participants across the aluminum value chain as opposed to product-type lead time respondents concentrated upstream and midstream, the majority still report stable lead times. The second most common response is “extending,” and “shrinking” remains the least selected.

Meanwhile, the share reporting “extending” lead times fell by 11 percentage points in November, split roughly evenly into modest increases in both the “stable” and “shrinking” categories.

In fact, broken down by company type, the responses tell a more nuanced picture of lead times as well.

All recyclers and scrap processors in the survey reported stable lead times. Responses from the other categories—producers, manufacturers & assemblers, and distributors & traders—were more mixed.

Manufacturers & assemblers and distributors & traders were both roughly split 50/50 between “stable” and “extending,” while 60% of producers selected “stable” and the remaining 40% divided evenly between “extending” and “shrinking.”

When segmented by end market, the patterns were complementary in some places and contradictory in others.

Transportation-focused respondents, for example, showed a clear tilt toward longer waits, with roughly a 60/40 split between “extending” and “stable,” which aligns with the lingering effects of the fire at Novelis’ Oswego facility in September and possibly the next in November ahead of the plant’s planned ramp-up. Packaging participants showed a similar split between “extending” and “stable” lead times.

Respondents serving the building and construction market reported “stable” lead times 50%-60% of the time, with the remainder divided fairly evenly between “extending” and “shrinking.” As noted above, all recycler responses indicated “stable” lead times—consistent with their position in the value chain and their proximity to scrap flows.