TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Despite weak metal prices and a flood of low-priced exports from China, US primary aluminium producer Century Aluminum on Wednesday confirmed that it would continue running two potlines at its Hawesville, Kentucky smelter.
This rate represented about 40% of the plant’s capacity from October 24 onwards and did not represent all the capacity Century announced in August it would idle.
A market glut amid slower-than-expected demand growth had dimmed aluminium spot prices over the last 12 months to trade near five-year lows.
The remaining operations at the Hawesville smelter would mainly produce high-purity aluminium and provide molten metal to local customers. The rate of continued production would be contingent on acceptable commercial conditions, including aluminium prices, product premiums and operating costs.
"Hawesville's ability to produce high-purity aluminium enables the smelter to produce a unique product that will hopefully allow the plant to survive, albeit at significantly reduced production levels, in today's market conditions,” president and CEO Michael Bless commented.
He decried the fact that Hawesville's operations could not compete against the “improper export of unfairly-subsidised Chinese aluminium products”.
“The continued expansion of Chinese aluminium capacity, coupled with the significant increase in unfairly-subsidised Chinese aluminium exports has caused the collapse in industry pricing and put this excellent plant in jeopardy. These issues must be addressed immediately," Bless stressed.
Century, which operated aluminium smelters and refineries in Iceland and the US, issued a new conditional federal Working Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) notice to employees who would be impacted by continuing a two potline operation. The new WARN notice informed those employees that the remaining operation was expected to be curtailed if certain high-purity production levels were not achieved or if there was a material negative change in commercial circumstances. The previous WARN notice issued on August 25 remained in effect for the remaining employees.