VALCO Reactivates Operations

THE Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) has been reactivated for operations after being shut down for two years.

Consequently, the smelter is expected to produce its first primary aluminium metal of 80,000 metric tonnes in January 2011.

The Managing Director of VALCO, Mr Emmanuel Lartey, announced this when the Minister of Energy, Dr Joe Oteng-Adjei, visited the plant in Tema yesterday.

He said VALCO had 20,000 metric tonnes of alumina ready and was stockpiling carbon to start smelting, explaining that the designed capacity of the smelter plant was 200,000 metric tonnes of primary aluminium per year when all the five lines were in operation.

He said currently the long-term London Metal Exchange price of aluminium was estimated at $2,500 per tonne, noting that the long-term potential sales revenue of VALCO would be $500 million per annum.

Mr Lartey said for a start, the company would produce to feed local companies downstream before exporting to the international market.

Dr Oteng-Adjei for his part, said the government rgarded VALCO as one of the critical agents which served as an anchor for Ghana's integrated industrial development strategy through aluminium, saying it was in the light of this that President Mills, in July 2009, tasked him to facilitate the conduct of a study of VALCO.

The minister said verifiable evidence from the study indicated that a properly mainstreamed VALCO held a significant place in the country's economic transformation agenda.

He said the reactivation of VALCO provided a unique opportunity to create 8,000 direct jobs and 40,000 indirect jobs in the over 150 downstream industries and the several other companies engaged in aluminium fabrication and use, as well as service provision activities.

Dr Oteng-Adjei said with the activation of VALCO, the downstream industries would source their raw materials locally, without the attendant huge freight and other costs associated with the importation and clearing of their basic raw materials from other countries.