The price of peace: risks for Russian exporters are growing after the opening of the Strait of Hormuz

While the United States and Iran are fixing the terms of the peace agreement, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is being restored. Oil prices went down, and with them aluminum and fertilizers began to fall in price. This creates new risks for Russian producers and exporters, who are already suffering from a strong ruble. Read what experts think about the situation on the commodity market in the Izvestia article.

Deflation in the commodity market

The lifting of the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz has already led to a correction in prices on the commodity markets. Olga Osharova, Director of S+Consulting, notes that the opening of the strait will have a deflationary impact on the oil market. In the first days after the lockdown is lifted, she predicts a downward price correction of about $10-20 per barrel. The IEA member countries that selected oil from strategic reserves (USA, Japan and others) will suspend these selections. Additional pressure will create the exit of loaded tankers accumulated in the Persian Gulf during the lockdown.

As the effect wears off, according to Osharova, the market will return to trading on fundamental factors, primarily demand in China and the US macroeconomics.

The opening of the strait will also free up tanker tonnage, which was idle or operated with increased leverage during the crisis, and lower freight rates. This will moderately reduce the cost of logistics of raw materials. However, the expert emphasizes that this will not cause a direct collapse in fertilizer prices: freight is only a small fraction of their final cost. Fertilizer prices are determined primarily by the price of natural gas (for nitrogen), the cost of phosphate and potash raw materials, as well as export restrictions from China and Russia. A reduction is possible, but its scale will depend on the dynamics of these factors, and not on the removal of the lock alone.

Prices are falling, risks are rising

The opening of the strait dealt the main blow to the aluminum market. Rusal, which has been operating at a loss for the second year in a row, is particularly at risk. About 20% of world trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz. This includes 23% of aluminum supplies to markets outside China.

Lifting the lock can bring about 3 million tons of stopped production back to the market. And this is in addition to the already growing volume of metal supplies from Indonesia, which will double by the end of the year and reach 1.6 million tons (almost twice the current volume of the Russian domestic market), and in the coming years it will double to 4 million tons, which is already comparable to the current annual production of the entire Russian Rusal.

Maxim Shaposhnikov, adviser to the manager of the Industrial Code Foundation, explains that the opening of the strait will not lead to a complete restoration of aluminum supplies at the pre-war level. Production with a capacity of about 3 million tons has been halted due to Iran's attacks. According to his estimates, about 23% of aluminum, which is in demand outside of China, will return to the market.

The market's reaction is still cautious. Although metal futures have declined by 11% since the beginning of June, to $3,410 per ton, they are still significantly higher than before the outbreak of the Middle East conflict. An additional factor constraining market optimism is the aggressive rhetoric of Fed Chairman Stephen Warsh, who does not give hope for a rate cut, and hence for an influx of liquidity.

"The market has taken a wait—and—see attitude, but now all commodities tend to become cheaper, so further weakening of aluminum prices cannot be ruled out," Shaposhnikov notes.

The problem of a strong ruble

For Rusal, the price drop comes at a time when the company is already in a difficult financial situation. In 2025, she made a loss for the first time in more than 10 years. In the first quarter of 2026, according to the Kommersant newspaper, she also worked "in the red."

"A strong ruble, of course, reduces the profits of exporters and negatively affects their financial results," Shaposhnikov notes.

Boris Kopeikin, chief Economist at the Stolypin Institute for Growth Economics, points out that the key problem for most exporters is an overly strengthened ruble. According to him, this is what led to the losses last year. Even at the peak of aluminum prices on the world market, which jumped in the spring due to the closure of the strait, they increased at best by 10-15% in ruble terms compared to the second half of 2024. Since then, ruble tariffs for electricity and transportation services have increased markedly, and salaries have grown at a faster pace.

"The world's most efficient metal producers purchase electricity one and a half times cheaper than Rusal," Kopeikin emphasizes. — As a result, the company's financial results for the first quarter are not encouraging. And taking into account the fact that since the beginning of June, prices for a number of commodities, including aluminum, have noticeably decreased on the news of possible agreements between the United States and Iran, revenue is also falling. And the limits of the price drop are not yet obvious.

Commodity dependence and sanctions

Kopeikin draws attention to the structural problems of Rusal. The company imports 75% of the raw materials, the main reserves of which are concentrated in the equatorial belt, processes it into metal and exports the same share. Russian raw materials are of inferior quality and more difficult to access (Severouralsk is home to the only bauxite mine in the world where aluminum ore is extracted by the open—pit method; AGK is the only producer of alumina from nepheline).

"Sanctions restrictions are also affecting — the actual ban on metal supplies to the United States and the current loss of the European market,— adds Kopeikin. — They also complicate and make it more expensive to purchase raw materials for metal production, primarily logistics, but not only.

Price within Russia

Despite the difficult situation of the sole producer, these problems are not passed on to metal consumers within the country. Over the past ten years, the consumption of primary aluminum in Russia for the production of finished products has doubled. And despite the absence of barriers to metal imports from abroad, it is not transported to the country, unlike ferrous metallurgy products, where Chinese suppliers have already significantly complicated the situation for Russian manufacturers in the Far East and Siberia.

"In the near future, following the fall in world prices, we should expect a noticeable decrease in prices on the domestic market," Kopeikin believes. — However, questions about regulation remain.

He recalls that at the end of last year, the FAS regulation, which had been in force for many years, was lifted in Russia, linking domestic prices with quotations from the London LME Exchange, which serve as the main benchmark around the world, which introduced some confusion into pricing.

Maxim Shaposhnikov believes that if the company successfully balances its sales policy, it has the opportunity to develop the domestic market.

"Nevertheless, the rising ruble energy costs in Russia, against the background of unfavorable expectations regarding the prices of the global aluminum market, pose certain risks to the stability of the business of our only producer of winged metal," he summarizes.