CFAC a boneyard for Sebree

A Midwest aluminum smelter that was prominent news in Columbia Falls 40 years ago is back in the news today. And a possible pattern is emerging — a giant parent company favoring one plant over another.

Alcoa was hired to build the Sebree smelter for Anaconda using cutting-edge smelting equipment, and dozens of experienced aluminum workers left the Flathead to help get the new plant up and running.

But now the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co.’s owner, global trading giant Glencore, which recently merged with global mining giant Xstrata, has acquired a major interest in the Sebree plant through its holding company, Century Aluminum Co. Century paid Rio Tinto Alcan, Sebree’s fourth owner, $61 million for the Kentucky smelter, which is about 20 percent larger than CFAC.

According to the Century Aluminum corporate Web site, the company was created in 1995 as a holding company for Glencore’s aluminum producing assets. Those assets include the Ravenswood, W.Va., Mt. Holly, S.C., Hawesville, Ky., CFAC and Sebree smelters in the U.S. and a smelter in Iceland. Three members of Century’s board of directors are high-ranking Glencore executives.

The significance of the Sebree acquisition struck home this past week with talk about four to six Sebree employees scheduled to visit the CFAC plant on Monday, Dec. 9. According to sources, they were flying here to look over equipment that could be sold or transferred to Sebree — generic industrial equipment that could be vital to CFAC’s operation and difficult to replace.

The CFAC plant has barely run since it completely shut down in January 2001. The four pot rooms in the original West Plant are completely gutted, and many of the anodes in East Plant were damaged when incorrect carbon-paste briquettes were used. But a small crew of maintenance workers have worked hard to keep the plant ready for the day energy, raw material and metal prices justify an expensive re-start.

Publicly, Glencore has claimed a serious interest in CFAC ever since it acquired the plant in May 1999. That’s when senior trader Simon Trinca told media, “We view this as a long-term investment, with all that implies.”

This past year, Glencore representatives met with city and county officials who were concerned about CFAC’s future and growing talk about an EPA investigation and eventual Superfund-like cleanup.

Matt Lucke, Glencore’s senior aluminum trader in the U.S., called the idea of generating jobs through a big cleanup “short-sighted.” Lucke, who CFAC sources say championed the local smelter, left Glencore this summer to open a small trading business in Switzerland.