Economy · Primary Metal Output
World Aluminium Production
More than ten thousand times the metal of 1900, all of it made by a process found in 1886.
- 6,800 t (1900) → 74 Mt (2025, estimate)
- Doubled every ~6.8 yrs, 1900 to 1973
- China made 60% of it in 2024
- Primary metal only, not recycled scrap
Every tonne of primary aluminium is still made the way Charles Martin Hall and Paul Héroult each found in 1886: by running an electric current through alumina dissolved in molten cryolite. In 1900 the whole world made 6,800 tonnes. By 1973 it made 12.1 million, a doubling about every 6.8 years for seventy-three years. The Second World War shows as a spike in the middle of that climb: output reached 1.95 million tonnes in 1943 and fell back to 790,000 by 1946 before the post-war rise resumed.
Then the pace changed. From 1973 the world took twenty-seven years to double its output again, reaching 24.3 million tonnes in 2000. Growth picked up after that, and the 2024 total was 72.8 million tonnes, 44 million of it, 60%, from China. USGS estimates 74 million for 2025: more than ten thousand times the output of 1900 and still rising, but the pace has slowed. Since 2000 output has doubled roughly every fifteen years, and since 2022 it has grown by less than 3% a year.
These are USGS figures for primary aluminium, metal smelted from alumina; aluminium recovered from scrap is not counted. Through 2021 they come from the agency’s historical statistics workbook. Each later year comes from the Mineral Commodity Summaries edition published two years after it, by which time USGS has revised its first estimate, and the 2025 point is that estimate, from the 2026 edition. World totals there are rounded. The two sources agree exactly on 2021.
| Year | Value | Note | Projected |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1900 | 6,800 tonnes | ||
| 1901 | 6,800 tonnes | ||
| 1902 | 7,900 tonnes | ||
| 1903 | 8,500 tonnes | ||
| 1904 | 10,000 tonnes | ||
| 1905 | 13,000 tonnes | ||
| 1906 | 17,000 tonnes | ||
| 1907 | 22,000 tonnes | ||
| 1908 | 17,000 tonnes | ||
| 1909 | 30,000 tonnes | ||
| 1910 | 45,000 tonnes | ||
| 1911 | 46,000 tonnes | ||
| 1912 | 58,000 tonnes | ||
| 1913 | 65,000 tonnes | ||
| 1914 | 69,000 tonnes | ||
| 1915 | 78,000 tonnes | ||
| 1916 | 106,000 tonnes | ||
| 1917 | 123,000 tonnes | ||
| 1918 | 128,000 tonnes | ||
| 1919 | 121,000 tonnes | ||
| 1920 | 125,000 tonnes | ||
| 1921 | 70,000 tonnes | ||
| 1922 | 87,000 tonnes | ||
| 1923 | 141,000 tonnes | ||
| 1924 | 168,000 tonnes | ||
| 1925 | 178,000 tonnes | ||
| 1926 | 195,000 tonnes | ||
| 1927 | 220,000 tonnes | ||
| 1928 | 258,000 tonnes | ||
| 1929 | 280,000 tonnes | ||
| 1930 | 272,000 tonnes | ||
| 1931 | 220,000 tonnes | ||
| 1932 | 153,000 tonnes | ||
| 1933 | 142,000 tonnes | ||
| 1934 | 170,000 tonnes | ||
| 1935 | 259,000 tonnes | ||
| 1936 | 360,000 tonnes | ||
| 1937 | 482,000 tonnes | ||
| 1938 | 579,000 tonnes | ||
| 1939 | 720,000 tonnes | ||
| 1940 | 787,000 tonnes | ||
| 1941 | 1,040,000 tonnes | ||
| 1942 | 1,400,000 tonnes | ||
| 1943 | 1,950,000 tonnes | Wartime high: 1.95 Mt | |
| 1944 | 1,690,000 tonnes | ||
| 1945 | 870,000 tonnes | ||
| 1946 | 790,000 tonnes | ||
| 1947 | 1,080,000 tonnes | ||
| 1948 | 1,270,000 tonnes | ||
| 1949 | 1,310,000 tonnes | ||
| 1950 | 1,490,000 tonnes | ||
| 1951 | 1,800,000 tonnes | ||
| 1952 | 2,060,000 tonnes | ||
| 1953 | 2,470,000 tonnes | ||
| 1954 | 2,810,000 tonnes | ||
| 1955 | 3,140,000 tonnes | ||
| 1956 | 3,370,000 tonnes | ||
| 1957 | 3,370,000 tonnes | ||
| 1958 | 3,510,000 tonnes | ||
| 1959 | 4,060,000 tonnes | ||
| 1960 | 4,490,000 tonnes | ||
| 1961 | 4,700,000 tonnes | ||
| 1962 | 5,060,000 tonnes | ||
| 1963 | 5,320,000 tonnes | ||
| 1964 | 5,940,000 tonnes | ||
| 1965 | 6,310,000 tonnes | ||
| 1966 | 6,880,000 tonnes | ||
| 1967 | 7,570,000 tonnes | ||
| 1968 | 8,020,000 tonnes | ||
| 1969 | 8,970,000 tonnes | ||
| 1970 | 9,650,000 tonnes | ||
| 1971 | 10,300,000 tonnes | ||
| 1972 | 11,000,000 tonnes | ||
| 1973 | 12,100,000 tonnes | ||
| 1974 | 13,200,000 tonnes | ||
| 1975 | 12,100,000 tonnes | ||
| 1976 | 12,600,000 tonnes | ||
| 1977 | 13,800,000 tonnes | ||
| 1978 | 14,100,000 tonnes | ||
| 1979 | 14,600,000 tonnes | ||
| 1980 | 15,400,000 tonnes | ||
| 1981 | 15,100,000 tonnes | ||
| 1982 | 13,400,000 tonnes | ||
| 1983 | 13,900,000 tonnes | ||
| 1984 | 15,700,000 tonnes | ||
| 1985 | 15,400,000 tonnes | ||
| 1986 | 15,400,000 tonnes | ||
| 1987 | 16,500,000 tonnes | ||
| 1988 | 18,500,000 tonnes | ||
| 1989 | 19,000,000 tonnes | ||
| 1990 | 19,300,000 tonnes | ||
| 1991 | 19,700,000 tonnes | ||
| 1992 | 19,500,000 tonnes | ||
| 1993 | 19,800,000 tonnes | ||
| 1994 | 19,200,000 tonnes | ||
| 1995 | 19,700,000 tonnes | ||
| 1996 | 20,800,000 tonnes | ||
| 1997 | 21,700,000 tonnes | ||
| 1998 | 22,600,000 tonnes | ||
| 1999 | 23,600,000 tonnes | ||
| 2000 | 24,300,000 tonnes | ||
| 2001 | 24,300,000 tonnes | ||
| 2002 | 26,100,000 tonnes | ||
| 2003 | 28,000,000 tonnes | ||
| 2004 | 29,900,000 tonnes | ||
| 2005 | 31,900,000 tonnes | ||
| 2006 | 33,900,000 tonnes | ||
| 2007 | 37,900,000 tonnes | ||
| 2008 | 39,700,000 tonnes | ||
| 2009 | 37,200,000 tonnes | ||
| 2010 | 41,800,000 tonnes | ||
| 2011 | 46,800,000 tonnes | ||
| 2012 | 49,300,000 tonnes | ||
| 2013 | 52,200,000 tonnes | ||
| 2014 | 54,100,000 tonnes | ||
| 2015 | 57,800,000 tonnes | ||
| 2016 | 59,400,000 tonnes | ||
| 2017 | 59,400,000 tonnes | ||
| 2018 | 63,300,000 tonnes | ||
| 2019 | 62,600,000 tonnes | ||
| 2020 | 65,000,000 tonnes | ||
| 2021 | 67,500,000 tonnes | ||
| 2022 | 68,400,000 tonnes | ||
| 2023 | 70,000,000 tonnes | ||
| 2024 | 72,800,000 tonnes | ||
| 2025 | 74,000,000 tonnes | 2025: USGS estimate |