ReMA 2025 Roundtable Speakers Preview – Meet Alasdair Gledhill

From Wednesday, September 10, to Friday, September 12, traders, processors, and consumers across the U.S. and abroad will congregate in Chicago for the ReMA 2025 Roundtables. This two-and-a-half-day event features massive networking opportunities in tandem with expert market analysis.

ReMA News had the chance to chat with Alasdair Gledhill, one of the speakers for the Nickel/Stainless Roundtable on Thursday, Sept. 11. Gledhill is Chief Marketing Officer at Houston, Texas-based Allied Alloys.

Tell me about your background.

I've been in the specialty metals industry since 1995. I originally worked in a stainless-steel mill in Chicago and sold various cold rolled downstream products.

After I earned an MBA at DePaul University, I was invited to work for ELG Metals in 2000. I worked there for over 20 years and built a trading book of business, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest and I also developed international customers in India and the UK. I was also fortunate that ELG full supported the four years I spent serving on ReMA's national board. These years were really helpful to develop a network of colleagues throughout the industry, and I would recommend getting involved with ReMA and other trade association early and often.

After ELG I had the good fortune to see our business from the other side of the table as raw material procurement director for Allegheny Technologies, a stainless steel and nickel alloy producer. I thoroughly enjoyed my interactions with former recycling competitors having competed head-to-head with them for so many years. I hope I helped to develop ATI's appreciation for the hard work and quality products that the recycling industry brings to the melting industry during my time as a mill buyer.

Having learned a great deal at ATI, the Greenberg and Turakhia families asked me to join Allied Alloys to lead commercial efforts and position the company for continued success. The last year has been a nice homecoming for me to be re-acquainted with old friends and meet many new ones.

Nidhi Turakhia, Allied's Chief Executive Officer, has been a driving force within Allied Alloys for over two decades. Gary Hensley, Chief Operating Officer, joined Allied Alloys in June 2024 and has nearly 30 years of experience in the recycling industry. I came onboard as the Chief Marketing Officer a year ago. Under Nidhi's leadership and with help from Allied colleagues we've made some great progress and will continue to position the company for the future.

What are some of the challenges and opportunities you see in the nickel/stainless space?

First, we are dealing with major geopolitical tectonic shifts. The current administration's tariff polices may be well intentioned and yet are having some depressing effects on recyclers. Likewise, it is harder for recyclers to source scrap globally when importers are unclear on tariff liability. For every action there always an opposite reaction and exporters of scrap are trying to navigate retaliatory tradefare on their sales. Uncertainty in policy leads to uncertainty in business and until the dust settles it is challenging to manage pressure points placed on our businesses.

There is a demographic shift going on, not only in the country, but more specifically in the recycling world. There are veteran recyclers retiring in droves and yet a dearth of younger individuals who appreciate our business and are excited to join our ranks. This is perhaps understandable given the generally poor performance of our sector over the last business cycle. Bottom line: it's still difficult to attract talent to our industry.

So, we have geopolitical challenges and demographic shifts, which can be disruptive. Add to that volatility in certain metals, like copper, which does feed into a set of nickel alloys. Likewise, we need to be watchful of price swings in other metals like molybdenum and tungsten which have had decent upswings of late.

Perhaps the largest challenge for nickel and stainless is how will the global nickel surplus be alleviated? It's no surprise to anyone that China is a major power when it comes to nickel production with many belt and road projects pumping out NPI and now class 1 nickel.

Nickel as a class one product is traded on two exchanges: the Shanghai exchange and the LME, both of which are owned by China based entities. Meanwhile western miners of nickel are confronted with trade restrictions, consumer capacity utilization issues and terminal exchange prices that, in some cases, are below the cost of mining production. Nevertheless, the western world has well developed recycling industries as witnessed by melt ratios for scrap in Europe and North America being much higher than in Asia. As we argued during the covid era, "Recycling is Essential". This is still very much the case.

What are some of your big questions surrounding nickel/stainless going into 2026?

One of the biggest questions I have going into 2026 is whether the electric vehicle (EV) battery demand will continue the way analysts are anticipating. If so, it might help alleviate some of the nickel surplus. If it is not EV batteries or other demand side stimulants is there perhaps a few supply side events such as mine closures that will get the terminal market for nickel back in balance more quickly?

Another question is how long recyclers can weather the generally poor stainless market. Generally speaking, the LME has dropped around $1000/mt over the last year and any extended period of famine puts the recycling industry to the test of risk mitigation, efficient operations and savvy trading just to keep food on the table.

In summary I have more questions than answers going into 2026. At the Roundtables we have a great panel and a talented moderator in Terry Savage. I am looking forward to a fun, spirited discussion where we may discover some more answers.