OSLO – Norsk Hydro may take months to return its Karmoey aluminium plant in western Norway to full capacity following a power outage that cut production by about 10%, the company said on Tuesday.
Hydro on Monday switched off 45 of the 288 aluminium cells at the plant's main production line, corresponding to around 27 000 t of annual capacity, to help enable stable operations for the remaining units.
"In order to restart the cells that were taken out of production we must first clean them out and provide a new lining before we can start over. We're talking months rather than weeks before all are back in operation, although it's too early to be more precise," Hydro spokesman Oeyvind Breivik said.