Fort William Smelter future uncertain

[lmsforever]

 On the BBC Scotland news website an item about the Fort William smelter ,Rio Tinto have announced a world wide investigation of all their sites worldwide so things could be going against the site which produced 47000 tons of aluminium last year .One hundred and sixty people work on site which owns a substancial amount of land locally also the rail freight service is under threat  along many other jobs in the area.Lets hope that the Scottish government steps in as if this place closes we will have to buy the product from abroad such as the steel supply is going.

[RANGERS]

The site has been under a shadow of closure for more years than I care to remember and there's little prospect of the Govt stepping in, any inducements to keep it open would likely fall foul of EU trade regs on state subsidies. The major issue with heavy industry at the present time is energy costs, ironic at a time of low oil prices, but a review of their production worldwide is likely to favour lower labour cost locations.

 

The Govt role is to ensure the playing field is level and when commodity prices are falling, the UK isn't left asa dumping ground for surplus production from elsewhere.

[carlw]

Maybe we should dump the EU and their rules.

I'm sure that the US have a rule that if it can be bought/made in the USA then it has to come from themselves first.

[enginelane]

Things can be made cheaper elsewhere but need to look at why. Cheaper labour, poorer environmental laws, Heath and safety all need to be factored in but sadly they will not.

[black and decker boy]

Maybe we should dump the EU and their rules.

 

I'm sure that the US have a rule that if it can be bought/made in the USA then it has to come from themselves first.

but the USA is one of the biggest importers from China and also imports massively from South America

[Lochinvar]

This would be a pity,and a significant economic loss to the Lochaber area. But the fundamentals of this plant's operation do seem to defy convention. All the basic material,Alumina,is imported via Blyth and taken by rail to Fort William. Perhaps this wouldn't be too much of a handicap if there was a market locally for the finished product,aluminium ingots. But that,as I understand it,is all shipped out for consumption elsewhere.

 

DR

[Theo C. Cupier]

A pity if this plant closes.  A deciding factor may the importance attached to the in-house supply of electricity from their own hydro-electric stations.

[duncan]

The plant was built there due to the availability of cheap hydro electric power nearby, no need for expensive electricity transmission over long distances, ie to the Midlands.  A clear case of reduction in "environmental levies" seems to be needed. 

 

If you haven't seem an industrial electricity bill, then I think most would be shocked at what industry has to pay to satisfy the government (UK & Scotland) and subsidise private users.  I am a company accountant.

[david.hill64]

When I was a student (it seems like a long time ago in a galaxy far far away) we had an educational trip to industrial sites in Scotland, including Ravenscraig steel plant, Johnnie Walker bottling plant, Carron Iron works, various Speyside distilleries and the Fort William aluminium smelter. At the time the smelter kept going because all of the electrical supply equipment had been written off financially years before - it looked like something that Dr Frankenstein used - and the power from the company Hydro station was effectively free. I had always assumed that this plant would have gone the same way as the steel and iron works by now as it was ancient even then. I am pleased it has survived and just wish it can keep going. The capital cost of providing new plant (and the nimbyisn that surrounds all infrastructure provision in the UK) means that it is unlikely that we would ever replace it, dooming ourselves to reliance on imports for even strategically important materials.

 

No prizes for guessing which was the favourite site visit (clue: they provided samples and I don't like blended whisky............................)

[Arthur]

 

.... Carrron Iron works,.......and the Fort William aluminium smelter

 

it looked like something that Dr Frankenstein used

 

In comparison to Carron Ironworks it must have looked like something from Flash Gordon. The Carron Ironworks blast furnaces wouldn't have looked out of place in 1800.

[black and decker boy]

If the production numbers on the BBC are accurate then its clear why the smelter is vulnerable.

 

9 plants produce 3.322million tonnes of aluminium. Ft William contributes just 47,000T to that. In other words, the other 8 plants produce an average of near 410,000 tonnes (or nine times the amount that Ft William produces). We don't know if the other plants also have hydro-power but economies of scale must mean they are at least as competitive.

 

It will be a shame for it to close though and pretty dire for the Ft William area economy.

[ejstubbs]

but the USA is one of the biggest importers from China and also imports massively from South America

 

Indeed: if you look at the table of aluminium smelters across the world on Wikipedia, China has 64 smelters producing 18 million tonnes per year, whereas US is shown with 11 smelters producing 2.2 million tonnes per year - although seven of those are actually closed or about to close, and another four are running at reduced capacity or are "curtailed".  So much for US protectionism.

 

(Mind you, the American smelters make "aluminum" which is obviously a different material )

 

The plant was built there due to the availability of cheap hydro electric power nearby, no need for expensive electricity transmission over long distances, ie to the Midlands.  A clear case of reduction in "environmental levies" seems to be needed. 

 

If you haven't seem an industrial electricity bill, then I think most would be shocked at what industry has to pay to satisfy the government (UK & Scotland) and subsidise private users.  I am a company accountant.

 

Aluminium smelting from alumina is an electrolytic process which also requires large quantities of substances to be kept in the liquid phase throughout the electrolysis when they would much rather prefer to be solid.  I suspect the electricity bill for an aluminium smelter might give even you a bit of a shock!

 

In terms of the effect on Fort William of the smelter closing down, the losses of direct jobs amount to a bit less than 2% of the town's total population.  Compare that to Kinlochleven where the job losses were closer to 10%.  Of course there will be other jobs at risk in the supply chain, but I suspect most of those will not be lost in Fort William itself.  Fort William is already a major focal point for outdoor pursuits such as hillwalking, climbing, mountain biking, skiing, kayaking, diving etc.  Kinlochleven wasn't a major outdoor pursuits centre when the smelter was operating but now has businesses like the bunkhouse for West Highland Way walkers, and The Ice Factor climbing centre (both of which occupy buildings which were previously part of the smelter complex).  I'm not intending to minimise the  impact that closure of the Fort William smelter would have on the local area, but I think it's unlikely to be as significant in local terms as the one at Kinlochleven was.

 

AFAIK the hydro plant at Kinlochleven now provides electricity to the grid.  If the smelter at Fort William were to close then presumably the hydro plant there could be re-purposed in the same way, which would provide a welcome addition to Scotland's overall renewable generation capacity.

 

[As a final, potentially controversial comment: perhaps the local authority could get some kind of EU support, from its funds for assisting disadvantaged areas, and employ some of the displaced workers in helping to turn the town centre in to slightly less of a sh!t hole.  It's like someone decided that Cumbernauld town centre turned out so well that they decided to repeat the exercise at the head of Loch Linnhe...]