Romania's Alro plans alumina capacity upgrade

Romanian aluminium producer Alro plans to invest $50m over the next two years in upgrading the alumina refinery at its subsidiary Alum.

The investment will be used to modernise the main production facilities at Alum, cut the consumption of materials and energy, upgrade a thermal power plant and align the plant to European labour and environment protection standards, Alro said in a statement to the local stock exchange. The work will result in a complete shutdown of the plant, the company said without providing a time-frame.

The upgrade will lift capacity at the refinery from a current 500,000tpy to 600,000tpy. Beyond that, Alro said it aims to increase capacity to 1 million tpy by 2010.