Dow Chemical magnesium price cartel (1946–1975)

Quantity overview (250,000 tons globally vs. 40 million for aluminum, 1 billion for steel). Half goes to Al alloying; rest to steel desulfurization, nodular iron, tantalum/Nb reduction, and sacrificial anodes in hot-water tanks. Tom closes with Joel Clark's first PhD student's thesis tracking magnesium and aluminum prices in lockstep 1946–1975, attributing it to a Dow Chemical illegal cartel.

Magnesium does count for something. Let's talk about the quantities used in the world. Shipments of magnesium from '83 to '88 — it doesn't matter too much, they didn't change dramatically. 28,000 metric tons used for die castings, then 37,000 tons for gravity and wrought products. Only seven thousand of the thirty-seven thousand is wrought products — wrought meaning sheet. Someone wanted to deform magnesium, and I said it's not easy. This is an example. To work it you have to do it warm. It's a hexagonal close-packed metal. It can be made into sheet, but you have to really know what you're doing.

The Dow side of the same Kenney-thesis cartel evidence.

There's one plot in here about Alcoa's command of the market. Alcoa had a monopoly. They had 100% of the market for bauxite in the world. They were a true monopoly in the aluminum business. George Kenney, who was Joel Clark's first doctoral student, did his doctoral thesis on aluminum and magnesium and showed pretty convincingly that Alcoa and Dow had fixed prices after World War II. Alcoa said, we won't go into the magnesium business if you stay out of the aluminum business. So Dow took over magnesium and had a monopoly there. You could match their prices over time from 1945 up until 1975 when George did his thesis.