Pittsburgh based Alcoa to invest more on stability in 2022, says Bill Oplinger

The American industrial corporation and the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminium, with corporate headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Alcoa’s senior executives are planning to invest more in 2022 to sustain their existing facilities. However, they will be observing for acquisitions and anticipate the projected returns of growth projects to develop.

On 21st September 2021, at the Jefferies Virtual Base Metals & Battery Materials Summit, Bill Oplinger, CFO of Alcoa said: “Me, Roy Harvey CEO of Alcoa and our team view sustaining the company’s bauxite, alumina and aluminium operations as their top capital allocation program.”

He further added: “The Pittsburgh-based company is on pace to spend $375 million this year on sustaining capital work as well as $50 million on growth projects and the number will grow next year.”

“We are making the choice to invest instability in some of our plants so that will be an upward creep,” Oplinger said.

“Alcoa will detail their 2022 spending plans around the turn of the year. We’re not talking a huge magnitude and we’re working through those numbers today. I think it’s the right thing where we are in the market.”

The CFO continued by saying at Jefferies summit: “Alcoa as well-positioned in the current cycle despite various expense pressures because of its relatively lower cost of doing business. Its executives, he added, have some midsized growth projects on the table for their refining division but, with projected returns of between 10% and 15%, they don’t excite us enough to invest at this point.”