News & Market Analysis: Alcoa Signs Second Energy Deal In A Week And Secures Woodside Gas Agreement For Western Australian Alumina Refineries

Alcoa of Australia announced on June 23 it has locked in domestic gas supply through to 2030 after signing a new agreement with Woodside Energy covering 31.1 petajoules of natural gas from Woodside's Western Australian operations. The deal, which runs from 2027, was made possible by state government approval in December 2025 to extend the Pluto-Karratha Gas Plant Interconnector, enabling additional Pluto-sourced volumes to be processed through existing Karratha infrastructure and delivered to market.

The contracted gas will feed Alcoa's trio of Western Australian alumina refineries at Pinjarra, Wagerup and Kwinana, which together produce the alumina feedstock that primary aluminium smelters depend on. Woodside's executive vice president of marketing and chief commercial officer Mark Abbotsford said the agreement supports thousands of local jobs and contributes to the availability of alumina as a key material for the construction, manufacturing and energy transition sectors.

In a business update earlier this month, Alcoa flagged that its Alumina segment faces an unfavourable EBITDA impact of approximately $60 million in the second quarter, driven by a combination of weather-related shipment disruptions in Australia, higher refinery fuel costs in Brazil, and the broader cost pressures flowing from the Gulf supply crisis. Securing domestic gas supply at fixed contracted volumes through 2030 brings a degree of cost certainty to the Australian refinery base at a moment when energy and logistics costs are running well above historical norms across the industry.

This is the second energy supply deal Alcoa has concluded within a week. On June 18, Alcoa and Norwegian state energy company Statkraft signed two new power agreements securing electricity supply for Alcoa's aluminium smelter at Lista in Norway. The pair of agreements, which span two continents and two energy types, reflects a deliberate effort by Alcoa to underpin long-term operational continuity across its global portfolio at a time when energy availability has become the primary constraint on smelting and refining competitiveness.

Alcoa is scheduled to report its second quarter 2026 financial results on Thursday 16 July, after the close of trading in New York. The Australian alumina division's cost performance will be closely watched in the context of a primary aluminium market that has retreated sharply from its June highs, with LME Aluminium cash falling to a three-month low of $3,132/t on June 25 as US-Iran diplomatic progress raised expectations of a gradual return of Gulf metal supply.