Alcoa Plans to Restart Smelting Capacity


Alcoa Corp.’s Portland Aluminum joint venture plans to restart 35,000 metric tons per year (mt/y) of curtailed capacity at its aluminum smelter in the State of Victoria in Australia. The smelter has been idle since 2009 and metal production is expected to start in the third quarter of 2022.

Portland Aluminum is an unincorporated joint venture with 358,000 mt/y of total capacity, and Alcoa Corp. has 197,000 mt/y of consolidated capacity. Once the restart is complete, Portland Aluminum will operate at approximately 95% of total capacity and Alcoa Corp. will have approximately 186,000 mt/y of its consolidated capacity at Portland operating.

Energy to operate the restored capacity will be supplied under a new four-year agreement with power generator AGL. It will supplement the earlier announced five-year energy agreements with AGL, Alinta Energy and Origin that commenced on August 1. The restart’s total cost is anticipated to be approximately $28 million of which Alcoa’s share is approximately $9 million. (NYSE).


As featured in Womp 2021 Vol 12 - www.womp-int.com