TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – NYSE-listed lightweight metals specialist Alcoa on Tuesday announced that it would delay the curtailment of its Intalco Works primary aluminium smelter in Ferndale, Washington, until the end of the second quarter.
The company explained that recent changes in energy and raw material costs have made it more cost effective in the near term to keep the smelter operating to provide molten metal to the plant’s casthouse. Further, the company expected aluminium demand to rise 6% in 2016.
The plant was initially scheduled to curtail by the end of the first quarter.
In November, Alcoa announced a full curtailment of the 230 000 t Intalco smelter by the end of the current quarter, with the plant’s casthouse continuing to operate.
To survive the low-price environment, Alcoa vowed to remove about 25% operating smelting capacity and about 20% of operating refining capacity by mid-2016, giving it an upstream production capacity of 2.1-million metric tons, with about 12.3-million metric tons of operating refining capacity remaining.