Alcoa is a pure-play upstream aluminum company covering the full production chain from raw ore to finished metal. Alcoa mines bauxite, refines it into alumina using the Bayer process, and smelts alumina into primary aluminum — selling at each stage to external customers. Alcoa is the largest alumina producer outside China and the largest third-party alumina supplier outside China. The company operates two segments: Alumina (bauxite mining and alumina refining, with key refineries in Australia, Brazil, and Spain) and Aluminum (smelting and casting across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Spain, and the U.S., plus energy assets that supply power to smelters and sell excess generation to the grid). Alumina is priced against the Alumina Price Index; aluminum is priced against the LME plus regional premiums and product premiums for value-added shapes like billet, slab, and rod. Because both products are commodities with externally set prices, profitability is driven by cost management — particularly energy, which Alcoa sources largely from long-term hydroelectric contracts — and by production volume and efficiency. Vertical integration from mine to metal reduces exposure to spot input prices, though it also means alumina and aluminum segments partially offset each other when relative prices shift. Alcoa sells to industrial buyers including aluminum smelters, auto supply chains, packaging companies, and cable manufacturers, through a direct sales force and commodity traders.