Alcan Plant Faces Uncertain Future

 It's more than 200 acres of industry in rural Henderson County…one of the few smelters left in the nation.

  The plant makes aluminum for various suppliers and uses several million dollars worth of electricity a month to do it.

  Rio Tinto has been owner to Alcan since 2007, but now the mining giant might be reconsidering its assets.

  Alcan's been around since 1973 and employs about 500 people.

  So any changes to the company would have a huge impact.

  Anthony Blue has worked on the line at Alcan for 25 years.

  He's not surprised to hear rumors of a sale.

  But if it did happen, he's fairly confident another company would step up.

  Still, he says even a buyout could impact neighboring industry…and especially Alcan's workers.

  "They might wind up shutting down a line and if they do that, then you're looking at several hundred jobs going down too."

  Henderson County Chamber of Commerce President Brad Schneider says Alcan is an asset to the region.

  It's multimillions of dollars in both payroll, ancilliary businesses. They're a major, major industry in our county."

  Schneider hopes instead of selling Alcan, Rio Tinto will invest in it.

  For Western Kentucky, it's precious metal…but no word on whether Rio Tinto thinks it's valuable too.

  Fox 7 has made attempts to contact Rio Tinto about its plans.

  Reps for the company didn't return the call.