ALRO considers adjusting production levels to respond to energy market situation

Tue, 10/18/2011 - 09:28

Slatina, 18 October 2011 – The management of ALRO SA, the biggest aluminium producer in South-East Europe, takes measures to ensure stable operation of the plant in spite of the energy shortage generated by the force majeure claimed by Hidroelectrica SA, the main energy supplier of ALRO, due to drought.

“Of course, the sudden significant reduction of the energy supplied by Hidroelectrica causes numerous difficulties for ALRO due to the specifics of ALRO’s production facilities, which consume constant, base-load power” says Gheorghe Dobra, CEO Vimetco. “It is the first time in our contractual history with any power supplier that we are facing a situation where we need to take emergency measures to ensure the safe operation of our equipment due to energy fluctuations, but we urgently applied an entire set of technical means to ensure uninterrupted and fail-safe equipment”, adds Dobra.

“ALRO has developed and implements a set of crisis-resistant measures for the entire Q4 2011, during which period a shortage in the energy supply from with Hidroelectrica is expected. These measures include covering the deficit at the expense of energy-saving technology, purchasing additional power from OPCOM, as well as reduction of power consumption by reducing the amperage. The company is also decommissioning ahead of time the cell pots that are approaching the scheduled maintenance time.

ALRO has also decided to shut down one potline in order to balance the power consumption with the available energy sources. The company plans to compensate the expected reduction of the output of electrolytic aluminium by reprocessing of aluminium scrap, for which it has enough capacities.

In any case, the possible reduction of the output of electrolytic aluminium will not affect the ALRO plans on production of processed aluminium and planned supply volumes. ALRO also initiates a set of measures focused on cost reduction to maintain the production efficiency in spite of the increased electricity cost.

“We believe, we will cope with this temporary shortage in power supply with minimum losses”, says Dobra.
 

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Florenta Ghiţă
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Notes to the Editors:
Alro SA is subsidiary of Vimetco, a global, vertically-integrated primary and processed aluminium producer. Alro is the largest aluminium production facility in Central and Eastern Europe measured by volume with an installed production capacity of 265,000 tonnes per year The main markets for the aluminium manufactured by Alro SA are within the EU (Hungary, Poland, Greece, Germany and Romania). The Company also exports to the US and Asia. Alro is ISO 9001
certified for quality management and has NADCAP as well as EN 9100 certificate for aerospace production organizations, its products respecting the quality standards for primary aluminium on the London Metal Exchange – LME, as well as the international standards for flat rolled products.