The European Commission has lowered the benchmark for primary aluminium imports under the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), according to a leaked draft of the approved document.
The benchmark determines the free allocations of carbon emissions that will be deducted from the CBAM liability of an importer once implementation of the scheme begins in 2026. The benchmark for primary aluminium will now be set at 1.423t of CO2/t of aluminium produced, down from 1.464t in the draft document seen last month.
The benchmark for secondary aluminium, which the EU defines as metal which is more than 50pc sourced from scrap metal, will now be set at 0.091t of CO2/t of aluminium produced, down from 0.139t in the draft document.
For most aluminium products in the intermediate steps of the value chain, such as bars, wire, plates and sheets, an additional 0.056t will be added to the primary and secondary benchmarks, while products at the end of the value chain such as aluminium containers and aluminium foil will see an additional 0.166t added to the benchmarks.
The commission has also set the default values for CBAM calculations within today's leaked documents. The CBAM default values are estimates of embedded carbon emissions that will be used to determine CBAM charges for imported material in the absence of adequate data for that specific material's origin.
The risk of losing the ability to use actual emissions data is a real possibility, consultancy firm Redshaw Advisors lead CBAM advisor Dan Maleski said today. The commission has confirmed that if circumvention of CBAM is detected for a producer, all producers within that country could lose the right to use actual emissions data and would need to rely only on default values, Maleski said.
The default values vary between countries and product type. Unwrought aluminium from China will have a default value of 3t of Scope 1 CO2 emissions per tonne of aluminium produced, with intermediate products at 4.88t and foil at 5.56t.
Aluminium from India will have a default value of 1.87t, with intermediate products at 3.44t and foil at 4.13t. The UAE will also have a default value of 1.87t for unwrought aluminium, but lower values of 2.22t for intermediate products and 2.66t for foil.
A phased-in annual mark-up to default values will be introduced over the next three years to compensate for data gaps, at an additional 10pc/yr.
