Whats crazy is that a significant portion of the aluminium minerals comes from a single source of bauxite in the world, near Pinjarra Western Australia .. something like 90% of the worlds aluminium is sourced from that one mine.
What's crazy is how modern shipping has made it economical to process this elsewhere, all over the globe. For example, from one of the biggest bauxite mines, in Pará, Brazil, the raw bauxite is shipped across the Atlantic to be processed by Hydro in Norway, which refines it into alumina powder, which is then shipped elsewhere to be refined into aluminum. You would think it would be more cost-effective and energy-efficient to centralize this, not to mention more environmentally friendly.
[1] https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/news/profiling-the-top-five...
Still, bauxite is pretty weird business.
If the Brazil plant is putting out enough ore, I can definitely imagine it is cheaper to sell it internationally to someone with hydro power than to build and operate their own power plant.