A blackout that forced Alcoa Corp to shut one of two potlines at its Portland aluminum smelter in Australia will ratchet up costs further and may put the plant's future in jeopardy, analysts said on Friday.
The smelter was hit when a power interconnector between the states of Victoria and South Australia went down on Thursday, knocking out power to both of the plant's potlines for about five-and-a-half hours.
Speculation has grown about the future of the Portland smelter after a recent rise in electricity prices added to pressure from a years-long glut in the global aluminum market.
"Restarting potlines is a messy, time-consuming, expensive business," said analyst Lachlan Shaw of UBS in Melbourne. "It's unquestionably another headwind to keep that operation open."
The smelter, co-owned by Alcoa, CITIC Resources and an arm of Marubeni Corp, produces about 300,000 tonnes of aluminum a year.
Alcoa said that one potline had been curtailed as a result of the outage, and to ensure the safety of people inside the plant.
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