Alcoa Inc. said it will have to reevaluate its plans to build an aluminum smelter near Husavik, north Iceland, following a statement by the country’s Industry Minister Katrin Juliusdottir indicating she didn’t think the smelter would be built in the next few years.
The smelter would require a large source of electricity, and Hordur Arnarsson, chief executive officer of Landsvirkjun hf, Iceland’s largest producer of electricity, has said Alcoa’s plans are unlikely to materialize because of the power supplier’s commitments to other power-intensive industries.
The minister’s comments indicate that energy policy in Iceland’s north has “taken a new direction. In light of this we will evaluate the impact on Alcoa and the possible investment” in the area, Alcoa said in the statement.
Iceland’s National Planning Agency completed an environmental-impact assessment for a 346,000-ton smelter in the area in 2010. The New York-based company first expressed interest in the area in 2005, a year after Alcoa began building a 346,000-ton smelter in Fjardabyggd, east Iceland.
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