11 November 2025 – After a brief dip at the beginning of November, aluminium premiums Duty Paid US Midwest have climbed to a new all-time high. In recent days, drafts for the calculation of CBAM certificate prices and their verification have also emerged.
Aluminium premiums at a new all-time high
After a short dip at the beginning of November, Aluminium Premiums Duty Paid US Midwest have risen to a new all-time high and stood on Monday at over USD 1,950/MT or USD 0.88/lb. The LME aluminium price closed on Monday at around USD 2,883/MT.
CBAM: Drafts on certificate prices and verification emerge
In recent days, drafts for two Commission Implementing Regulations have surfaced, which we were able to review. The first draft deals with the calculation and publication of the CBAM certificate price, while the second concerns the application of the principles for verifying the declared embedded emissions.
CBAM prices to be calculated quarterly for now
CBAM certificate prices are to be calculated quarterly in 2026 and, starting in 2027, on a weekly basis. This, too, is a concession by the Commission to itself, as it is clearly overwhelmed by the implementation of the hastily introduced CO2 tariff.
CBAM regulations still missing
Both Implementing Regulations are part of a larger package of legal acts that the Commission has not yet published. The two drafts also show significant gaps referring to CBAM regulations for which no drafts currently exist. Should these texts be forwarded to the Member States for consultation in their current form, decisions would have to be made on the basis of incomplete information.
No CBAM benchmarks in sight?
Reliable data for the benchmark and default values are still missing. A few days ago, information circulated suggesting that the Commission may substantially adjust certain EU ETS benchmarks. The current proposal for the iron and steel benchmarks foresees a reduction of only 6% for hot metal, while the EAF benchmarks are to be lowered by 50%.
Commission treats blast furnace and EAF routes differently
Once again, this shows that the Commission treats its own steel producers unequally and apparently has no real interest in achieving CO2-neutral steel production. While producers on the conventional blast furnace route can expect almost no changes to their benchmarks, producers on the already much “greener” EAF route are expected to meet even stricter requirements than before.
This imbalance is also evident in the “sliding scale for steel”, which defines the use of scrap in blast furnace and EAF production routes and determines when a steel product may be labelled as sustainable. While the blast furnace route is favoured under this sliding scale and faces significantly less stringent conditions to obtain the coveted label, the EAF route suffers considerable disadvantages.
However, the impact on the CBAM price should remain limited, as the EAF benchmarks represent only a small share of total CO2 emissions in steel production.
With the publication of the latest CBAM drafts, the European steel lobby is likely to be quite busy at the moment – and will hopefully stop following our CEO around the European Parliament.
Congratulations, Mr. Merz
We warmly congratulate German Chancellor Friedrich Merz today not only on his birthday but also on Germany’s demand to halt the Commission’s proposal for mandatory automatic monitoring of private chat messages. Germany and several Member States intervened on this matter last week. We hope that the Chancellor will make such wise decisions more often in his new year of life – ideally, on a daily basis.
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Disclaimer: Many things here represent our opinion. Others are information from the Internet. We can therefore never claim to be correct or complete. And never base a business decision solely on the news you receive from us.
