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Alcoa to idle smelting at South American plant; no word on Massena facility

Posted 3/30/15

Alcoa will idle smelting production at an aluminum plant in São Luís, Brazil, but there is no word if any United States facilities, including Massena’s, will be affected. Alcoa said earlier in …

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Alcoa to idle smelting at South American plant; no word on Massena facility

Posted

Alcoa will idle smelting production at an aluminum plant in São Luís, Brazil, but there is no word if any United States facilities, including Massena’s, will be affected.

Alcoa said earlier in March that they are conducting a companywide review could lead to plant closures.

They are looking at “500,000 metric tons of smelting capacity and 2.8 million metric tons of refining capacity for possible curtailment or divestiture.” They said 14 percent of Alcoa’s global smelting capacity and 16 percent of its global refining capacity could be affected.

The company released a statement on Monday saying they are cutting back 74,000 metric tons of smelting capacity at the South American plant. That’s in addition to 97,000 tons idled at the plant since May 2014, Alcoa said.

Once the São Luís facility is curtailed, Alcoa will have approximately 740,000 metric tons, or 21 percent, of its smelting capacity offline.

“We continue to take decisive steps to create a globally competitive commodity business and are executing against our upstream capacity review,” said Bob Wilt, president of Alcoa’s Global Primary Products. “These are difficult but necessary actions in support of Alcoa’s strategy to lower the cost base of our upstream businesses.”