Alcoa’s San Ciprián complex was thrown into turmoil by the massive power outage that swept across Spain on April 28, hitting both the aluminium smelter and alumina refinery hard. “Alcoa’s San Ciprián complex was impacted by the widespread power outage across Spain. As a result of the outage, both the refinery and smelter at the complex were affected. The company is conducting a thorough assessment of the facility to determine the full extent of the operational and financial impact,” the company confirmed in a recent statement. The catastrophic event has shaken businesses, enthusiasts, and investors alike as the impact of what looks like just a power cut can curtail millions of dollars’ worth of business for the company and the nation.
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The blackout struck at a particularly sensitive time, disrupting the 228,000 tonnes per year aluminium smelter and the 1.5 million tonnes per year alumina refinery simultaneously. This rare double blow posed a complex challenge for Alcoa’s emergency teams, who had to coordinate shutdowns of two very different production lines at once.
Just weeks before, Alcoa had proudly announced the smelter was back up and running at around 91 per cent capacity under its joint venture with IGNIS EQT, following a strategic Viability Agreement signed in 2021. The site’s on-site casthouse was poised to cast and ship ingots across Europe and beyond, making the outage a major setback.
Manuel Rodriguez, Alcoa’s spokesperson, has responded, stating, “Our priority was ensuring employee safety while working to minimise damage to production equipment. We activated emergency protocols within minutes of detecting the grid failure.” But the stakes were high.
Besides, metallurgical engineer Dr Elena Vázquez explained the gravity of what might at first strike like a temporary production disruption, conveying, “When a smelter loses power, we’re not just talking about a temporary production halt-we’re potentially looking at months of repairs and hundreds of millions in damages. The molten aluminium begins solidifying within hours, potentially destroying the expensive carbon cathodes and requiring complete rebuilding of production cells.” The risk of ‘freezing’-where molten aluminium solidifies inside electrolytic cells-loomed large as temperatures plunged dangerously close to the aluminium solidification point of 660°C during the outage.
Adding insult to injury, Alcoa had already earmarked USD 15 million for planned restart costs at San Ciprián in Q2 2025, part of a broader plan to optimise production capacity after maintenance. Now, the unexpected blackout threatens to inflate those costs and push back the much-anticipated production ramp-up.
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