Production pruning - Alcoa to shut Point Henry aluminium rolling operations

Alcoa Australia Rolled Products said that it will shut down its Point Henry Rolling operations for five days due to the global financial crisis. It said that “All business operations will be suspended from 17 August to 21 August 2009 inclusive. The five day suspension of operations will be taken as annual and long-service leave by the majority of the 350 employees of Alcoa ARP at Point Henry.” According to Alcoa ARP, the planned shutdown does not impact on the Point Henry Smelting or Anglesea Power Station operations. Alcoa claims it is experience a significant downturn in demand from all of its key customers due to the economic crisis. A skeleton crew will remain onsite for ongoing monitoring and maintenance operations. The rolling operations have been producing aluminium sheet at Point Henry since 1965, with the capacity to produce around 90,000 tonnes of rolled aluminium each year for use in aluminium beverage cans and wine screw cap closures. (Sourced from www.metalworker.com.au)