Ninety days and two obstacles to overcome to prevent Eurallumina’s 300 million euro investment from skipping. In other words, the plan to restart the Portovesme plant which, until 2009, dealt with the transformation of bauxite into alumina, the first link in the aluminum supply chain.
The obstacles
The first obstacle, to be overcome by September, concerns the signing (expected for the first days of August) on the Dpcm Sardinia, that is the provision relating to the arrival of methane on the island and in particular in Portovesme. The second, to be overcome by November, concerns the conclusion of the authorization procedure that gives the green light to the restructuring and modernization of the plants. These are the last steps of the long and troubled path that the company and workers have been going through for years amidst protests in the streets and institutional protocols.
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It all starts in 2009
The Eurallumina dispute began in 2009 when the Portovesme refinery plants shut down, which experts consider to be one of the largest in Europe due to its production capacity of 1.07 million tons of alumina per year. The high costs of fuel oil, necessary for the production of steam, the drastic drop in the price of alumina and the increase in bauxite, decreed the halt.
Objective re-ignition
“Immediately after the 2009 shutdown, all the preparatory activities for restarting the plants started – recalls Francesco Garau, Filctem regional secretary – and over time national projects and protocols have alternated”. The first, for the construction of a coal-fired cogeneration plant, is set aside to make way for a steam pipeline capable of connecting the Eurallumina plants with those of the nearby power plant. In the meantime, the administrative procedure goes on. “The process to obtain the authorizations lasted five years – the trade unionist still remembers – and in the end, when the last approval arrived, we collided with a fact: decarbonisation and the stop to coal plants, including the one that it should have supplied steam to the bauxite refinery. ‘ Therefore? “New project, this time for the construction of a floating coastal deposit and the revamping of the old oil-fired boilers that will use methane – argues Garau – and new authorizations”. This time, however, it passes through the instrument of the Paur, that is the regional measure that “has a duration of 120 days”.
Investments of 300 million
The investment plan, in light of the latest changes, is worth around 300 million euros. And it involves the construction of a new gas-fired Chp, the transformation and conversion to gas of the existing calcination furnaces and the elimination of the sludge disposal area with the implementation of a dry storage project.