European Aluminum: the aluminum industry in Europe has fallen into an “existential crisis”

Aluminum production in Europe has fallen to its lowest level since the 1970s, the agency said. Bloomberg. This was due to high electricity prices, as well as the refusal to import aluminum from Russia. The CEO of the European Aluminum Association, which represents the largest producers and processors in the region, told Bloomberg that the industry is in an “existential crisis.”

“This is a real existential crisis,” said Paul Voss, CEO of European Aluminum. “We need to come up with something quickly, otherwise there will be nothing to restore,” he said. Formerly agency Bloomberg reported that aluminum production has become one of the five main commodity industries that are experiencing an energy crisis. According to the agency, the European Union imports about half of the required volumes of aluminum.

According to Bloomberg, it takes 15 MWh to produce one tonne of aluminum, enough to power five households in Germany for a whole year. At the same time, only a part of the plants have state support in the form of subsidies. Europe has already lost about 1 million tons of its annual aluminum production capacity, according to Wood Mackenzie, a research firm cited by the agency, and about 25% of that may never be recovered.

On August 17, the Slovalco plant of the Norwegian company Norsk Hydro ASA in Slovakia closed. According to Milan Visseli, the plant’s chief executive, the plant’s annual electricity bill was to be €2 billion. The company’s owners hope the plant can reopen after the fall in energy prices.

September 1 world prices for aluminum fell to the level of April 2021 – on the London Metal Exchange (LME), the price fell to $ 2298.5 per ton. At the close of trading on Friday, September 2, the price was down 2.71% to $2,295 per ton.

Anastasia Larina