The future of Alcoa is once again clouded in Spain. The American aluminum giant, the third largest in the world after Río Tinto and Rusal, has just suspended sine die an important investment of 100 million euros in the Galician factory of San Cibrao and has met with the new heads of the Ministry of Industry to look in January for a solution to the financial hemorrhage that the country has been suffering for several years.
The new chapter joins other recent ones in this particular struggle to maintain what was once the state-owned company Inespal, an acronym for Spanish Aluminum Industry, property of the defunct National Institute of Industry (INI). Alcoa bought the nine plants of the public company in 1998 for 61,500 million pesetas, of which it now only maintains the alumina refinery and the San Cibrao facilities, after selling the Avilés and A Coruña factories in 2019, not without controversy. . In the two Galician centers it still owns, it employs 1,050 people.
At the end of 2021, and after an express trip by the then Minister of Industry Reyes Maroto to the Pennsylvania headquarters, a viability plan was approved that provided for a stop at the San Cibrao factory until January 2024 to address new investments. . It was the arrangement that was found after a previous failed plan by SEPI to take over the assets, which was never heard from again.
“All the investments are underway and some are very advanced, but the increase in costs has caused the final approval of the largest of them, that of the anode furnace, to be delayed,” company sources explain. “The continuity of Alcoa does not depend on it. Many factories do not have this oven and they work,” they clarify. If there is an anode and a cathode it is because the production of aluminum is carried out through an electrolysis process, which is very electricity intensive.
The uncertainty surrounding investments has once again put unions and local authorities on guard, but the underlying problem is greater. The company explains that since 2020 the San Cibrao plant has accumulated losses of 700 million dollars and “there is no evidence that the situation will change.” For 2024 alone there is a forecast of red numbers of 200 million dollars and "the prospects for the coming years are very difficult due to the deterioration of the aluminum market and excessive energy costs."
In addition to a slowdown in the European market and a decline in prices, the company assures that, in the case of Spain, "since the stoppage of primary aluminum production, the long-term cost of energy continues to be uncompetitive and In addition, the permits and development of wind farms linked to the power purchase agreements (PPA) signed by Alcoa have been delayed.”
The multinational and its poor results in Spain are already presenting themselves as a headache for the Ministry of Industry, accustomed to dealing in recent years with convalescent companies. The new Secretary of State for Industry, Rebeca Torró, has begun her duties by bringing together representatives of the company, unions and the Xunta to analyze the Alcoa case. The ministry, now directed by Jordi Hereu, has in its favor the creation for the first time of a State Secretariat for Industry, the result of growing sensitivity to these issues.
The name of Alcoa is known in the ministry and is thorny. Not even the sale of the Avilés and A Coruña plants came to fruition due to the appearance of intermediaries apparently more interested in taking advantage of the resources that Alcoa provided to maintain the workforce than in developing a long-term industrial plan. The German fund Parter bought the factories and then sold them to Grupo Riesgo, whose management has not given the expected results.
In San Cibrao, Alcoa recalls, “the commitment to the workers is to start progressively starting in January.” Despite describing the situation as “very difficult”, this year he has dedicated 65 million dollars to investments in Spain.
