A FOB price is half a price. The other half arrives later, in four or five separate invoices, and by then the order is on the water and the comparison against the local distributor has already been made in someone's head.
This is the arithmetic that decides whether importing was actually cheaper. It is not complicated, but it has to be done before the order, not after.
The six line items
1. FOB value. Metal plus conversion, at the port. Everything else is added to this.
2. Ocean freight. Quoted per container, not per tonne, which is why loading density matters. A 20ft container takes roughly 20–25 tonnes of aluminum depending on form: coil loads heavier than extruded profiles, and profiles load heavier than fabricated parts. If a supplier quotes per tonne without telling you the loading weight, you cannot compare two quotes.
3. Marine insurance. Usually 0.3–0.5% of CIF value for ICC(A) cover. Cheap, and the one line nobody should skip — see the packaging article for why.
4. Destination charges. Terminal handling, documentation, container release, and the charges your freight forwarder bills that were never in the ocean quote. On a 20ft container into a European port this commonly runs a few hundred euro, and it is the line most first-time importers forget entirely.
5. Duty and trade measures. This is the one that changes the answer, and the one you must look up rather than estimate:
- EU — the TARIC database gives the duty rate by product code, and anti-dumping duties on Chinese aluminum products are product-specific and reviewed periodically.
- US — HTSUS for the base rate, Section 232 measures on aluminum, plus any AD/CVD case covering the specific product.
- Elsewhere — MFN rate plus whatever your country has agreed or imposed.
Anti-dumping duty is calculated on the declared customs value and can exceed the metal's own margin. A product that looks 15% cheaper on FOB can land 10% more expensive than the European equivalent once an AD duty applies. Check the code before you check the price.
6. Inland transport. Port to your door. A container of coil needs a sideloader or a crane; a warehouse without one turns a $400 delivery into a $900 one plus a wait.
Worked example
Numbers below are illustrative — substitute your own quotes.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| FOB, 20 t of 5754 H22 sheet | $57,000 ($2,850/t) |
| Ocean freight, 20ft | $1,200 |
| Insurance, 0.4% of CIF | $233 |
| Destination charges | $420 |
| Customs clearance | $180 |
| Duty at 7.5% on CIF | $4,382 |
| Inland delivery | $400 |
| Total landed | $63,815 |
| Per tonne | $3,191 |
| Per kg | $3.19 |
The FOB price was $2.85/kg. It landed at $3.19/kg — 12% higher. That 12% is the number to compare against your local distributor's price, not the FOB quote.
Adding the costs that are not on any invoice
Three more items belong in the comparison, and none of them appear in a freight quote:
- Capital tied up in transit. Thirty to forty-five days on the water plus clearance. If your money costs 6% a year, six weeks of transit is roughly 0.7% of the goods value — small, but it is part of the difference against buying from stock locally.
- Demurrage and detention. Free time at destination is typically 7–10 days. A missing document, a late inspection, or a customs query can burn it. On a 20ft container, detention runs to real money per day, and it is always caused by paperwork rather than by the ship.
- The cost of a wrong lot. Certification that does not match the customer's requirement, a temper that is not what the drawing says, thickness at the wrong end of the tolerance. None of this is in the landed cost table, and all of it can cost more than the freight.
Where the savings actually come from
Importing aluminum is not usually cheaper because the metal is cheaper. It is cheaper for three specific reasons:
- Order size. A container of one grade from a distributor is priced with the distributor's handling already in it. Buying the same container direct removes one layer — worth roughly 8–15% depending on market.
- Mixed containers. One container holding coil, sheet and extrusion from three lines, on one invoice and one set of documents. A distributor cannot assemble that; a sourcing operation can.
- Grades the local market does not stock. The savings on an uncommon temper or a non-standard width are often larger than the savings on commodity sheet, because there is no local competing offer to compare against.
If none of those three applies — one grade, one standard width, a full container, available from a local distributor at a competitive price — then importing probably will not beat buying locally, and it is worth saying so early rather than quoting and losing later.
What to ask for before comparing quotes
Ask every supplier for the same six figures, on one line each: FOB per tonne, loading weight per container, freight per container to your port, destination charges estimate, and the HS code they would declare under. With the HS code you can look up the duty yourself instead of taking anyone's word for it.
Two quotes that cannot be reduced to the same per-kg landed figure are not two quotes. They are two numbers.