Century recalls 28 employees to Hawesville smelter

NEW YORK, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Century Aluminum Co recently recalled 28 employees to work 21 refurbished pots at its Hawesville, Kentucky, primary aluminum smelter, a company spokesman said on Tuesday. "We had allowed some broken pots to go idle on the potlines. We decided not to repair them. Now we've gone ahead and repaired them, just because it's more efficient to operate with a full line," the spokesman said. Hawesville's near 250,000 tonne-per-year aluminum smelter has five potlines, each with 112 pots, when operating at full capacity. Only four lines are currently operating and the restarted pots are all on the four running potlines. While the 21 additional pots will increase Hawesville's total aluminum output, the spokesman said he did not have exact numbers for the added amount of aluminum. In March, when the Hawesville plant shut one potline, it cut 4,370 tonnes of monthly output, or about 52,400 tonnes on an annualized basis, to reduce Century's significant cash losses in the face of depressed global aluminum prices and demand. Of the 28 recalled employees, 21 were directly related to restarting the 21 pots and the other seven will fill in for retired employees. In the company's second quarter earnings release in late July, Century's Chief Executive Logan Kruger said, the demand outlook had improved somewhat in certain regions and sectors. The spokesman said on Tuesday, however, that the decision to restart the repaired pots was made purely for efficiency reasons. "It's very inefficient to operate the smelter with random pots out," he said. Production at Century's 170,000-tonne-per-year Ravenswood, West Virginia, aluminum smelter remains completely curtailed as it has been since Feb. 20. The spokesman said the Monterey, California-based aluminum producer has no current plans to bring it back on line. "We monitor the situation all the time. But right now we have no plans to do anything different with Ravenswood," he said. (Reporting by Carole Vaporean; Editing by Marguerita Choy)