PERTH (miningweekly.com) – A power outage at the Portland aluminum smelter, in Victoria, has forced aluminium major Alcoa to halt production at one of two potlines.
While the other potline is operating, Alcoa warned on Friday it could experience a significant instability in the short term.
"It is too early to speculate on the full impact of the power outage, or on how long it may take to restore normal operations," the company said in a statement.
A fault on the Victorian transmission network in the early hours of Thursday cut power to the smelter’s potlines for about five-and-a-half hours.
The Portland smelter’s viability has been in doubt for some time and the power failure has added more uncertainty about its future.
Alcoa is facing significantly higher costs at Portland, after a favourable industrial power supply deal with the Victorian government expired at the end of October. The company is negotiating a new electricity supply contract with AGL.
The smelter, which has a 358 000 t/y capacity and produces about 20% of Australia’s aluminium production, is the largest employer in the region, with 510 direct employees and around 140 contractors.
Thursday’s power failure browned out about 200 000 properties in South Australia, which recently suffered a major state-wide power outage.
BHP Billiton CEO Andrew Mackenzie has warned that Australia’s attractiveness as an investment destination is at risk unless it can secure affordable, uninterrupted power. The company’s Olympic Dam uranium/copper mine, in South Australia, lost four hours of production on Thursday, owing to the power failure.