Alcoa Corporation, a leading bauxite, alumina, and aluminium producer, announced the signing of a New Labour Contract for Aluminerie de Bécancour Smelter in Québec, Canada on July 2.
"We are pleased that ABI has a new labour agreement that will get employees back on the job, working together to give the smelter a more competitive future," Tim Reyes, Executive Vice President and President, Aluminum said.
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Alcoa also announced that the ABI aluminium smelter would restart curtailed smelting capacity soon as the members of the United Steelworkers union approved a six-year labour agreement. The restart will start as soon as July 26, 2019 and is likely to be complete in Q2 2020.
ABI smelter, owned by Alcoa (74.95%) and Rio Tinto Alcan Inc. (25.05%), with an annual operating capacity of 413,000 tonnes per year, has been operating at a reduced capacity since January 11 2018, since the United Steelworkers rejected a labour contract for the hourly workers. One of three potlines was in operation during the lockout period and Alcoa announced an additional curtailment of one half of that line on December 19, 2018. This led to a drop in Canadian aluminium production in 2018. The company offered the final New Contract to the workers on June 26.
“Now we can turn our focus to safely restarting the facility and improving the operations to secure the long-term future of ABI for the benefit of our employees, customers, stockholders, and surrounding communities,” Reyes added.
He thanked his salaried workforce for continuing with the reduced operations during the lockout period in order to keep the plant ready for the restart.
The ABI smelter will recall the approximately 900 employees, who were in a lockout and the total workforce would be back within eight months of the July 26, 2019 restart date.
The Company expects to record special items associated with restart expenses of between $40 million and $50 million during H2 2019.
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