One of the few bright spots among breakbulk commodities has been the shipment of aluminum, and it’s no mystery why.

“There’s a mismatch between nodes of consumption and nodes of production,” said John Mothersole, director of research at IHS Pricing and Purchasing Service, a sister unit of JOC.com within IHS Markit.

Aluminum production has shifted to the Middle East, Russia, and especially China, and away from traditional consumption centers in the US and Europe. Moving the product from plant to user requires long-distance shipment by sea, primarily in multipurpose vessels.

During the last several years, steady growth in aluminum volume helped offset weak demand for other traditional breakbulk commodities. Continued growth in shipment volume appears likely, despite questions about protectionism, sluggish global economic growth, and competition from composites and other materials.

As for other commodities, the big story for aluminum in recent years has been China, which now produces more than half of the world’s primary aluminum, compared with 11 percent in 2000.

Primary aluminum production in China soared to nearly 31.7 million metric tons in 2015 from 20.1 million tons in 2011 and less than 3.8 million tons in 2001, according to the International Aluminum Institute.

Meanwhile, production has slowed in the US, Europe, and South America. A chief reason: energy costs, which can account for up to 40 to 50 percent of production costs. “It’s a very energy-intensive industry,” Mothersole said.

Aluminum smelters traditionally have been located where they have a captive source of electricity or access to low-cost supplies from electrical utilities. Those sources have shifted in recent years.

Primary aluminum production in North America fell 2.2 percent in 2015, while imports of aluminum and aluminum products rose 9.8 percent to their highest level in a decade, according to the Aluminum Association, which represents North American producers.

“That’s a chronic condition that’s not going to change over the medium term, or the long term,” Mothersole said. “The closure of primary aluminum smelters reflects the uncompetitiveness of the US industry in that segment vis-a-vis the rest of the world.”

He said the same thing happened in Japan, and more recently in Europe. European Union production now is concentrated in Iceland, which has geothermal energy, and Norway, which has hydroelectric power.

“Upstream primary aluminum production has migrated to the Middle East, Russia, and China, which is the main source of capacity increases in the last 15 years,” Mothersole said.

The remaining centers of North American smelting capacity are Quebec and the Pacific Northwest, which have low-cost hydroelectric power. Pacific Northwest smelters, however, face increasing difficulty matching the higher prices that municipalities and other utility customers are willing to pay for power, Mothersole noted.

Aluminum production in South America, once an important source of US imports, has declined sharply. Brazil’s industry is largely shut down. Venezuela’s smelters have been hurt by the implosion of their national economy.

Middle Eastern aluminum production has increased due to availability of cheap natural gas and a desire by the region’s governments to diversify their industry.

In China, aluminum producers have efficient technology and access to cheap coal-fired electricity. China’s excess production and increased exports have created friction with trading partners, which have accused China of dumping its excess production on world markets below cost. The US has imposed anti-dumping tariffs of up to 374 percent on Chinese aluminum extrusions, or shaped forms.

Though anti-dumping controversies and penalties aren’t as widespread as in the steel industry, they have altered trade flows and generated allegations that some aluminum is being relabeled or given minor alterations, then transshipped to avoid import restrictions.

The activities of futures exchanges also have affected global aluminum trade. For years, the London Metals Exchange was criticized for restricting withdrawals of the metal from its bonded warehouses in what critics called an effort to raise prices by artificially restricting supply. In 2015, the LME adopted new rules to liberalize withdrawals from its stockpiles, but Mothersole said the controversy damaged the LME’s reputation and gave a leg up to the Shanghai Futures Exchange, which is seeing increased activity.

The increased activity on the Shanghai exchange is generating some seaborne movements by traders using arbitrage to take advantage of price differences between delivery points offered by the Shanghai exchange and the LME, which has no warehouses in China.

The impact of this on trade, however, is only at the margins. The real driver of import-export volume remains supply and demand — and the geographical differences between the two.

Demand for aluminum comes primarily from consumer packaging (including beverage cans), construction, and transportation equipment. Consumer packaging is the largest market, but is fairly mature. Construction remains healthy and shows some growth, “but the big growth market, and the one the industry is counting on, is transportation equipment,” Mothersole said.

Aluminum is used in various kinds of transportation equipment, including aerospace, where the metal competes with composites and titanium, and light vehicles, where automakers are turning to high-value, heat-treated aluminum to reduce vehicle weight and improve fuel efficiency.

The fastest growth is forecast for emerging nations. In most of these markets, packaging and construction are generating increased demand, although some countries, such as China and Mexico, use large quantities of aluminum for their growing automotive industries.