Loading ...ALUMINIUM production will increase 13,000 tonnes at Portland Aluminium this year as 15 pots go back on-line.
Smelter partner CITIC Resources Holdings Ltd, which has a 22.5 per cent stake, will restart its share of the 68 pots that went off-line in the second quarter of 2009.
Portland Aluminium failed to confirm before deadline whether the increased production would result in any employment opportunities.
Keppel Prince managing director Steve Garner said the company was in discussions with Portland Aluminium to provide engineers to make the pots operational again.
In 2009 annual production was curtailed by 56,000 tonnes from 358,000, resulting in 28 workers taking voluntary redundancies.
Twenty contractors too were terminated in 2008 as part of a 10 to 15 per cent cost cutting measure for the smelter amid the global financial crisis.
Between October 2008 and May 2009, the price of aluminium dropped from $3100 per metric tonne to $1920 and was trading at $1940 per metric tonne at the end of January, as global stockpiles remain high.
Read more in Friday’s Portland Observer.
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