Alro invested 100 million dollars in energy efficiency

Alro Slatina, one of the largest aluminum producers in Central-East Europe reports an important increase of energy efficiency following constant investments during the past nine years, investments amounting USD100 million. The investments designated to improve the operational efficiency were directed both to the primary aluminum sector and to the processed aluminum sector.

According to a company release, Alro managed to diminish with over 75% the electricity consumption per tonne of aluminum for processed products, while gas consumption went down with more than 90% within that period. Additionally, the direct electricity consumption needed for the whole aluminum production process was 10% lower in 2012 compared to 2003. On the other hand, gas consumption in the same sector decreased with 30% within the same period.

'We're continuously working on growing the efficiency of our operations in order to maintain our competitiveness on a very fragile international market.(...) During the last nine years we've invested in modern equipment, we've increased the production capacity of high value-added aluminum, we've reduced the specific consumption and we've started recycling aluminum waste. All these measures seeks to reinforce our position on the market.' said Gheorghe Dobra, General Director at Alro Slatina and CEO at Vimetco.

The investments made in technological upgrading have also been included in Alro's strategy of increasing the energy efficiency. Besides that, the investment directed to processing the aluminum waste were meant to reduce the effects related to the increment of taxes for energy consumption which affected the aluminum industry.

Following these investments, Alro situates among the aluminum producers that have the lowest specific consumption in EU.