UC Rusal promises shortage for market, but doesn’t reduce its capacity

UC Rusal won’t close its two old aluminum plants - Novokuznetsk and Kandalaksha ones (NkAZ and KAZ) KAZ was helped by special tariff for electricity and NkAZ, analysts say, by weak ruble. These two plants were called the main contenders for the closure, but UC Rusal insisted that there is still considered a reduction of capacity to 200 thousand tons, but didn’t explained exactly where.

"Today we have no conservation plans in general," – UC Rusal’s director of communications with government agencies Oleg Vaitman said on Thursday, answered for journalists' question about the possible closure of Novokuznetsk and Kandalaksha plants (their capacity is 220 thousand and 76 thousand tons per year, respectively). UC Rusal’s director of the aluminum business Evgeny Nikitin added that closure of KAZ was planned, because the plant "didn’t have a contract for electricity supply for a long time, but it was signed, so the conservation plans are in the past". However, according to Mr. Vaitman, a decision to keep the production at the plants can still change: "Everything depends on the price of aluminum on the market, on price of electricity".