Century Aluminum Schedules Restart of Smelter Potlines

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Century Aluminum Company-the second largest primary aluminum producer in the U.S announced earliest restart of two of its idled smelter potlines as early as September this year. The announcement was made by Michael Bless, President and CEO while announcing the company’s second quarter 2018 results.

According to him, the first of three potlines at Hawesville smelter and the potline at Sebree smelter, both in Western Kentucky, will be commencing full production in September. The other two potlines at the Hawesville will be restarted in Q4 this year, thereby resulting in full restart of the plant by early 2019. Incidentally, the company is investing nearly $75 million in rebuilding the three Hawesville potlines. Meantime, the company is currently in negotiations for a new contract that would reduce power costs at its Mount Holly smelter. The smelter has been running at half capacity for more than two years.

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The second quarterly results were negatively impacted by equipment failure at Hawesville and Sebree smelters. The expenses related to Hawesville restart totaled $3 million, whereas Sebree smelter outage squeezed the second quarterly earnings of the current year by approximately $8.5 million.

Century Aluminum reported net income of $19.4 million for the second quarter of 2018. This compares with a net loss of $0.3 million for Q1 this year. The company reported adjusted net income of $30.9 million in Q2, as compared with adjusted net loss of $3.5 million during the previous quarter. The adjusted EBITDA surged higher significantly from $21.8 million to $54.5 million over the previous quarter. The sales for the quarter totaled $470 million.

The primary aluminum shipments by Century Aluminum declined marginally from 187,238 tonnes in Q1 to 180,220 tonnes in Q2, mainly on account of lower production due to equipment failure at the Sebree smelter.