Romanian aluminium company Alro SA (Alro Slatina) said that its alumina plant Alum Tulcea will be closing in a month due to a substantial rise in electricity and natural gas that has made the plant unprofitable.
Domestic media said earlier this week that, of the 700 employed at the plant, only about 260 would still be employed upon closure.
Alum Tulcea indicated that the closure would likely not be permanent, however.
“Under the new conditions of activity at Alum, the organizational chart of the company was revised, taking into account the maintenance of a core of specialists from all departments of the plant, needed to prepare the resumption of the production activity once the situation returns to normal.”
Alum Tulcea is operated by Alro Slatina’s subsidiary Vimetco. The plant, which has a nameplate capacity of 600 thousand metric tons per year, is Romania’s sole producer of calcined alumina. Most of the plant’s output is used by Alro Slatina, with a small portion that is left for export.
Sources told Romanian media that Alro Slatina will instead import alumina via the port at Constanța.
Alro was founded in 1963 and is based in Slatina, Romania. The firm, a subsidiary of Vimetco N.V., is managed by Russian investor Vitaliy Machitski and has an installed capacity of 265,000 metric tons per year, making it one of the largest producers in Central and Eastern Europe outside of Russia and Scandinavia. It also produces 35 thousand metric tons per annum of recycled aluminium and churns out 335 thousand metric tons per annum of cast aluminium.