We're seeing strong demand growth in aluminum across all major markets: Alcoa CEO William Oplinger

With me tonight, CNBC’s Morgan Brennan and Alcoa President and CEO William Oplinger in a first on CNBC interview. Morgan Contessa, thank you. And Bill, it’s so great to speak with you. Thanks for joining us on the heels of earnings. Hi, Morgan. Thanks for having me on. So I do want to get into the quarterly results. But first some your reaction to the news of the day, the fact that President Biden earlier today called for what would essentially be a tripling of tariffs on Chinese metal imports including aluminum. What does that do for the market here both in the US and globally? The, the tripling of the tariffs are essentially on a fairly small sub sub segment of the aluminum that comes into the states. And while it’s it’s small, we think it’s a benefit to many of our customers here in the in the US So we’re supportive of it. But probably more importantly we’re seeing demand growth in all of our major markets whether it’s in the US, North America, Europe and China. We’re seeing real pickup and strong demand across all of our major regional markets and across all of our industries. And so that’s in building construction, automotive, electrical transmission. So we’re seeing real good demand growth on a year over year basis. Yeah, and certainly that was the headline from the results today. I wonder what you think is propelling it. Is it is it a reflection of stronger than expected economic growth in markets like the US or is it a secular shift, a spending shift? When we do talk about things like for example infrastructure spending and other areas where aluminum is going to be required, I think it I think it’s all of the above plus the energy transition that’s going on around the world. So again where where we see some of the strength was in was in the packaging business, see it in automotive has remained strong even in building and construction which in 2023 was a was a difficult market. We’re seeing a rebound in the stabilization in building construction. Then as I go out into the future, aluminum’s a critical part to the energy transition When we, when we look at electric vehicles, the modernization of the grids around the world, aluminum growth by 2051 of the major prognosticators says by 2050 we’ll see aluminum demand growth grow by 80%. So really, really good underlying dynamics in the marketplace. So we can talk about improved market dynamics, but you’re also focused on improving the financials in the company, looking to cut $100 million in costs from Alcoa this year. How is that process going and how does that position you just in time for this recovery. So I I’m really pleased with a lot of the progress that we made in the first quarter in the company. So if you look at some of the things you you referenced the fact that we have announced $100 million competitiveness program. We’ve launched that throughout the system. All the plants, all departments have targets that they’ll hit. We’re going to hit that $100 million run rate but benefit by the first quarter of 2025. On top of that, we announced a a major acquisition in the first quarter $2.2 billion acquisition of a joint venture partner in located in Australia will significantly streamline the company and make the equity story around us much, much easier. On top of that, we were able to make progress on a number of key strategic initiatives. So aside from the the revenue beat in the quarter, the margin beat in the quarter really pleased with the the progress that we made around the strategic initiatives and of course you’re referencing the Aluminum Limited acquisition. Do you continue to be acquisitive, especially when you do think about, I guess taking on further control of your supply chain and continuing to become more vertically integrated? Well, let’s get the Alumina Limited transaction done first. We announced it in the first quarter. We’ve been working on it for a long time. We should have it completed in our view by the third quarter of this year. After that, we will continue to focus on optimizing the portfolio that we have, taking cost out, making the plants much more competitive and this is the first step towards a really good growth of the company.