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TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – US aluminium and related products producer Alcoa on Monday announced that it would close its Portovesme (Carbonia-Iglesias, Italy) primary aluminium smelter, where production had been curtailed since November 2012.
The closure would reduce Alcoa’s global smelting capacity by 150 000 metric tons to 3.6-million tons a year.
The Portovesme smelter was curtailed in 2012 owing to it being one of the highest-cost smelters in the Alcoa system and had limited prospects for becoming competitive.
“The fundamental reasons that made the Portovesme smelter uncompetitive unfortunately have not changed,” Alcoa global primary products president Bob Wilt said.
As part of its commitments to the government and unions, Alcoa noted that it had provided financial social support, along with outplacement and re-employment services for employees.
The closure was dovetailing with Alcoa’s strategy to create a globally competitive commodity business and lower its position on the world aluminium production cost curve to the thirty-eighth percentile by 2016.
Total restructuring-related charges for the third quarter, as a result of the closure, were expected to be between $170-million and $180-million after-tax, or between $0.14 and $0.15 a share, of which about 60% would be noncash.
The New York-headquartered company was transforming its portfolio, which, in recent months, saw the largest US aluminium producer make a string of significant investments in its downstream specialist manufacturing business segments, strategically building out these manufacturing capabilities to generate increased revenues in the face of low primary aluminium prices.