Alcoa Inc said on Monday it plans to close its Portovesme, Italy, smelter and slash output at two Spanish smelters as the U.S. aluminum producer takes aim at its high-cost European operations.
Low aluminum prices, non competitive electricity prices and sustained low aluminum demand have pushed the plants into the red.
But the plan, which is part of the measures announced last week to reduce output by 12 percent by the end of June, will throw further doubt on the long-term future of Alcoa's embattled smelting operations in Europe.
For more: Alcoa takes aim at their high-cost European smelters - chicagotribune.com
Showing posts with label Aluminum Industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aluminum Industry. Show all posts
10/8/10
The company behind Hungary's toxic spill
MAL chairman Lajos Tolnay is estimated to have a personal fortune of some 85m euros ($118m; £74m), making him the 21st richest person in Hungary, according to business daily Napi Gazdasag.
His two co-owners Arpad Bakonyi and Bela are said to each be worth about euros 61 each. The company itself posted a profit of 715,000 euros in 2008, on revenues of 157m euros.
The company has said the incident was a "natural catastrophe" and insists on its website that the red sludge is not considered toxic waste according to European Union safety standards. But the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said that human error was "more than likely and that the wall [of the reservoir] did not disintegrate in a minute. This should have been detected," he said.
For more: BBC News - The company behind Hungary's toxic spill
His two co-owners Arpad Bakonyi and Bela are said to each be worth about euros 61 each. The company itself posted a profit of 715,000 euros in 2008, on revenues of 157m euros.
The company has said the incident was a "natural catastrophe" and insists on its website that the red sludge is not considered toxic waste according to European Union safety standards. But the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said that human error was "more than likely and that the wall [of the reservoir] did not disintegrate in a minute. This should have been detected," he said.
For more: BBC News - The company behind Hungary's toxic spill
10/6/10
Hungary battles to stop toxic sludge from reaching the River Danube - by Daniel McLaughlin
Hungary opened a criminal investigation yesterday into an escape of deadly toxic sludge from an Aluminum industrial plant, amid fears that it could grow into a regional environmental disaster.
Four people were killed, about 120 were injured and three are still missing after a dam holding waste slurry collapsed at an alumina works in the south-west of the country, sending a wave of poisonous red mud racing through nearby villages and into a tributary of the River Danube.
Rescue teams are searching for the missing people, cleaning up the caustic grime and pouring tonnes of gypsum into the River Marcal to try to prevent contamination of the Danube, Europe's second-longest river, which from Hungary flows through Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Moldova on its way to the Black Sea
.
For more: Hungary battles to stop toxic sludge from reaching the River Danube - Europe, World - The Independent
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