The overall market for building and construction aluminum continued to recover this year--despite some still-lagging regional pockets--as both mill producers and downstream fabricators enjoyed 10 percent to more than 15 percent growth in demand compared with last year.

Even so, gyrating aluminum prices, spurred by worldwide aluminum production overcapacity and hefty Commonwealth of Independent States aluminum exports, have prompted some major mills to announce cutbacks in the past year:

* Reynolds Metals Co., Richmond, Va., said it would downsize its McCook, Ill., rolling mill, a move that affects, among other products, common alloys for the construction markets.

* Alumax Inc., Norcross, Ga., said it would end aluminum rolling operations in Joliet, Ill., and Riverside, Calif., which produce common alloy sheet for the construction and appliance markets.

* Alcan Aluminum Ltd., Montreal, plans to sell or shut down its building products network in the United States, which makes aluminum, vinyl and steel items. It later disclosed plans to sell two aluminum extrusion facilities to Cressona Aluminum Co., Cressona, Pa.

* AmeriMark Inc., Raleigh, N.C., said it would close its Gnadenhutten, Ohio, plant due to the "long, continuous decline in consumer acceptance" of aluminum siding.

Does this shakeout mean the survivors have clear sailing?

"I don't think anybody in the aluminum business today would say we're having a windfall because of McCook's plight," said Joe Byers, vice president of sales and marketing for Barmet Aluminum Corp., Akron, Ohio. Even though the cutbacks have undoubtedly altered the U.S. supply picture, Byers observed in late June, "we live in a global economy and we're seeing imports we didn't see six months ago."

With the former Soviet Union exporting such mainstay flat-rolled products as 5052 alloy coils, he explained, the pressure will remain on U.S. mills to keep their own production costs as low as possible.

Meanwhile, a cross section of construction-related aluminum companies report their business has strengthened considerably since the slump of 1990-91.

J.G. Braun Co., a distributor based in Skokie, Ill., reported a 10-percent improvement in sales in 1993 following a slow 1992 and said it is optimistic about the likelihood of an even bigger increase this year.

Dan Sullivan, sales manager for the distributor of angles, channels, tubing and hand railing components for both the residential and commercial construction markets, said the market "seems to be escalating this year, so there could be the chance of a 15-percent or even 20-percent increase." But he emphasized that 1994's ultimate strength could depend on recovery in regions such as California and parts of the East where the construction market is lagging the country as a whole.

New England "is still slow as far as commercial construction is concerned," said John Duran, director of marketing for Leed/Himmel Industries Inc., Hamden, Conn., which extrudes shapes and also buys large shapes and mill products for its fabricated products that are sold for both construction and industrial applications. But New York and New Jersey appear somewhat stronger, he said.

Duran pointed out that the public works market--which includes construction of schools and government buildings--is accounting for a disproportionately higher share of business in New England, presumably due to the decline in commercial business.

At the F.W. Dodge division of McGraw-Hill Inc., New York, which tracks the building and construction market, the forecast this year is for a 9-percent rise in overall construction compared with a 6-percent improvement last year. This general upturn, though, masks uneven progress among various categories. A Dodge analyst pointed out that residential, public works and institutional construction is increasing from levels of "relative strength." But office, hotel and warehouse commercial construction has just begun to rise after languishing close to 30-year lows.