What Actually Drives the Price of Aluminium Foil per Tonne

Two suppliers quote the same alloy, the same gauge and a different number. Here is the cost structure behind an aluminium foil quotation, line by line, so you can compare offers properly.

When quotes for what looks like identical foil come back far apart, the difference is almost never the supplier being generous or greedy. It is the specification. A foil quotation is built from several independent cost blocks, and small changes in any of them move the tonne price.

The Metal: LME Plus a Conversion Premium — Why Does It Drive the Price?

Two suppliers work from the same metal reference on the same day and still arrive at different numbers.

The market metal reference is public and shared, while the conversion premium covers the energy and work of rolling ingot down to foil gauge. Most of the real gap between two offers tends to sit in that second block.

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Every quote starts from the aluminium ingot price, which is set daily on the London Metal Exchange and is the same reference for every mill in the world. Nobody controls it and nobody can hold it for long. What differs between suppliers is the conversion premium, which covers the energy and labour of rolling the ingot down to foil gauge. That premium is where most of the real difference between quotes lives.

It helps to picture a quotation as two blocks rather than one figure. The first block is market metal: public, session-driven and broadly the same for anyone buying that day. The second block is conversion, and it is built rather than published. Repeated rolling passes, the energy of running and stopping the line, the annealing cycle, the testing regime and the yield loss any rolling operation carries all feed into it.

Because that second block is built rather than read off a screen, two suppliers can describe the same alloy on the same day and still be describing two different production routes. Aluminium foil rolled on a line running near its comfortable speed tends to convert more cheaply than the same gauge squeezed out of a line running at its limit, and that difference shows up in the premium rather than in the metal.

Alloy and Temper: Why Do They Change the Cost Base?

The alloy you name and the temper you ask for quietly reset how much work the metal needs.

Common alloys are rolled continuously and convert cheaply, while speciality alloys and tight tempers add passes, annealing and testing. A temper tighter than the application needs can raise the cost base and reduce formability.

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Common alloys such as 8011, 1235 and 1050 are rolled continuously and are the cheapest to buy. Specialty alloys and tight tempers mean more rolling passes, more annealing and more testing, so they carry a higher conversion cost. If your specification says H18 where H24 would work, you may be paying more for a foil that also forms less well.

Rolling a coil towards a lighter gauge hardens it, and the temper you specify describes how much of that hardening is still present when the metal reaches you. A hard state such as H18 often asks for more passes and less softening, while a softer state such as O, H22 or H24 tends to ask for a controlled anneal that consumes energy and time. See how a converter uses 1235 aluminium foil at 0.012 mm when a light, formable surface matters.

Alloys outside the everyday trio behave differently again: the 1100, 1060 and 3003 grades, the 3004 and 8011 workhorses and the 8021 and 8079 variants each bring their own rolling behaviour. Each extra pass also carries a small risk of a defect, so a tighter temper can mean more inspection and more material set aside. None of this makes a tighter temper wrong; it means the cost base follows the metallurgy you asked for.

Gauge and Width: Why Does Thickness Move the Price More Than Anything Else?

Thickness looks like a small line on a specification sheet, yet it touches every run on the mill.

Below a certain gauge, rolling speed drops, passes multiply and breakage rises, so the cost per tonne can climb even though you buy less metal. Narrow widths also leave trim behind, so they tend to carry a premium.

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Thinner foil is not cheaper than thicker foil by weight in the way most buyers expect. Below a certain gauge, rolling speed drops, breakage rates rise and the number of passes increases, so the cost per tonne can climb even though you are buying less metal. Width works the same way: slitting a jumbo roll down to a narrow width creates trim that has to be recycled, so narrow widths carry a premium over standard widths.

Think about the mill rather than the invoice. A coil at the top of the process is thick and forgiving; by the time it is rolled down towards the lighter gauges inside the 0.005 mm to 0.20 mm band, the tolerance for error narrows sharply. A coil finished at 0.012 mm and a coil finished at 0.030 mm may leave the same mill in the same week, but they do not ask the same of the line.

Width adds a second layer of the same logic. A buyer who asks for 100 mm to 300 mm of width from a wide jumbo roll is asking the slitter to cut more; a buyer who stays closer to 1500 mm leaves less trim behind. Core size, usually 76 mm or 152 mm, and the tolerance on width and gauge feed the same calculation. Our note on how to choose aluminium foil thickness walks through the trade-offs, and the foil roll and sheet range shows the standard gauges and widths.

Surface, Lacquer and Interleaving — What Do They Add to the Cost?

Finishes are easy to leave off a specification and impossible to leave off the cost.

Mill finish is the base product, while bright, one-side matte, lacquered, laminated and printed surfaces each add a process step and a rejection risk. Interleaving adds material and slows winding.

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Mill finish foil is the base product. Bright finish, one-side matte, lacquered, laminated and printed foil each add a process step and a rejection risk. Interleaving with paper or film adds material cost and slows winding. These options are often worth paying for, but they should be quoted as separate line items so you can see what each one costs you.

Each of those steps exists for a reason, and each one can be quoted. A bright finish usually means work on the rolls to reproduce a surface; a one-side matte finish means a deliberate contrast between the two faces; a lacquer or a laminate means an extra pass through a coating line and a drying stage; printing adds artwork, registration and a set-up that has to be repeated for every run. Any of them can be left off the specification, but none of them can be left off the cost.

Interleaving deserves a line of its own. Winding foil with paper or film between the layers protects the surface and eases later unwinding, but it consumes material on every metre and slows the winder, so a coil that is one step slower is one step more expensive to build. The foil manufacturers' association is a useful neutral reference on how thin the material can be handled in this way.

Packing and Pallet Configuration, Freight and Incoterms — Why Do They Change the Delivered Cost?

A quotation that stops at the factory gate is not the figure the container will finally arrive at.

Export packing, pallets, moisture barriers and edge protection all cost money to build, and FOB and CIF offers only become comparable once inland costs and insurance are added. Ocean freight moves week to week.

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Export packing is frequently underestimated. Eye-to-sky wooden pallets, moisture barrier wrapping, edge protection and cartons all add cost, and so does the labour of building them. Ask whether the packing you were quoted is the packing the container will actually arrive with, because upgrading it later is expensive.

FOB and CIF quotes are not comparable until you add your own inland costs and insurance to the FOB figure. Check which port is used, whether the quote includes the loading plan, and who pays for what if the container is delayed. Ocean freight also moves week to week, so a quote that is several months old is only a rough guide.

The two halves of that story meet at the port. A quotation that names one port may load faster or slower than a quotation that names another, and the loading plan decides how much of the box is actually used. Payment terms belong in the same conversation, because carrying a balance while the container is at sea costs something even when it never appears as a line on the offer. A packing upgrade requested after the coils are already wrapped is also expensive, which is why the packing line on a quotation deserves the same attention as the gauge.

Order Size and Container Utilisation: Why Do Order Size and Slitting Change the Price per Tonne?

Setup, slitting patterns and testing do not shrink just because an order does.

Fixed work is spread across the tonnage, so larger and repeatable orders tend to carry a lower cost per tonne, while a loading plan that fills the container properly can matter as much as a small concession on metal.

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A single-container order is not priced like a repeat, multi-container programme, and it should not be. Setup, slitting patterns and testing are spread across the tonnage, so larger and more repeatable orders carry a lower cost per tonne. Container utilisation matters just as much: a loading plan that fills the box properly can be worth more than a small discount on the metal.

That logic is easy to see once the fixed work is laid out. A slitting pattern has to be set before the first coil is converted; a trial run consumes machine time whatever the tonnage behind it; testing is charged by the batch rather than by the tonne. Spread across a large, repeatable programme the same work is shared much further, which is why order size belongs on the specification rather than in a separate commercial conversation. The aluminium industry association in North America describes the wider sector, which is a useful reminder that the same fixed work sits behind every quotation.

Slitting and loading pull in the same direction. A jumbo roll cut into many narrow reels leaves more trim, more cores and more handling than the same tonnage left in fewer, wider reels, and a mixed set of widths is harder to pack tightly. A well-planned load fills the container with fewer voids, so a carefully matched set of widths can be worth more than a small concession on the metal. The aluminium foil roll range we offer for converters is built around exactly that balance.

How to Compare Two Offers — Where Should You Start?

The numbers mean nothing until the specifications behind them are lined up.

Put alloy, temper, gauge and width with tolerances, core, surface, interleaving, packing, quantity, Incoterm and port side by side first. Most of the gap narrows once the specifications match, and what remains is real.

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Put the specifications side by side before comparing the numbers: alloy, temper, gauge with tolerance, width with tolerance, core diameter, surface, interleaving, packing, quantity, Incoterm and port. In our experience most of the apparent gap between two offers narrows once the two specifications are lined up, and what remains is usually a genuine difference in conversion cost or in order size.

The order of comparison matters more than the arithmetic. Two offers built on different ports, different thickness tolerances or different quantities are not describing the same product, and a simple side-by-side of the headline number will mislead in either direction. Line them up field by field, then ask which of the remaining differences a change in your own specification could remove.

A written specification is the cheapest tool in the whole exchange. When alloy, temper, thickness with tolerance, width with tolerance, core diameter, surface, interleaving, packing, quantity, Incoterm and port are all on one page, a supplier has to answer the actual question instead of a convenient one, and you can see where the money is going. Our guide to comparing aluminium foil quotations sets out the same checklist, and the European aluminium industry association is a neutral reference on the sector as a whole.

Why Is a Price Quoted Today Not a Price for Next Quarter?

A quotation is a picture of one morning rather than a standing offer for a season.

The metal reference, the conversion premium, the freight leg and the packing cost all move at different speeds, so a figure built today describes the conditions of the day it was built, not the quarter ahead.

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A quotation dated today records the metal reference, the conversion premium, the freight leg and the packing cost on the day it was built, and none of those four moves at the same speed. The metal reference is repriced continuously; the conversion premium tends to shift more slowly, following energy and capacity; freight can move sharply within a week; packing follows labour and material. A figure that is a quarter old is therefore history rather than an offer.

This is why a quotation normally carries a validity period, and why the period itself is information. When the timing of your enquiry changes, the answers change with it: a question asked during a quiet period may be met with a more relaxed conversion premium than the same question asked when the mills are full, and a shipment planned across a peak week pays a different freight leg from one planned either side of it.

Practical consequences follow. If your specification is fixed, quoting earlier gives the supplier more room to plan, while quoting late may mean the only tonnage available is the tonnage that is least convenient. If your specification is still moving, asking for a firm figure too early tends to produce a caveat rather than an answer. The honest position is that the same specification can carry two different figures in two different months without anyone behaving badly, which is why a quotation is best read together with its date, its validity and the moment the enquiry was made.

We quote line by line against a written specification, so you can see exactly what each element costs. Start from our aluminium foil roll range for converter and industrial supply, or the foil roll and sheet range for retail-ready material, and send your specification for a costed quotation.

A foil quotation is a set of choices — alloy, temper, gauge, width, packing, quantity and timing. Describe them precisely and the figure explains itself.