Alcoa’s San Ciprian smelter, Spain remains closed after a nationwide power outage in April.
The power outage caused the complete shutdown of Spain as well as parts of France and Portugal as well as the smelter.
Alcoa said last week it would not resume the restart of the smelter until it had answers from the government on the root cause of the power outrage as well as the corrections put in place to ensure it does not reoccur.
Molly Bierman, CFO, Alcoa, told the Wolfe Materials of the Future Conference the smelter was about 10% resumed when the April power outage hit.
The Spanish smelter had originally been closed in 2021 due to high energy costs.
While only a handful of pots were saved after the April outage, the refinery has since fully recovered after it went down, she said.
“We are not going to, resume the restart of the smelter until we get some answers from the government authorities on the root cause of the power outage as well as the corrections that are being put in place to make sure it does not recur."
The company will also need to know what the costs will be if the government needs to manage the grid differently in future, she added.
Discussing the longer term future of the smelter, she warned there could be two difficult years as part of the recovery plan but, under the right power agreement, the smelter can be profitable.
“We have actually great assets there. The workforce, very knowledgeable, they’re experts, they really know how to run the operation well.
“The refinery also has a great team, but there the economics are a bit more challenged.
"We’ve got the residue storage area that’s undergoing some CapEx to be able to fortify that and to maintain production, but the smelter has long term profitability prospects.”