Alcoa announced today that the company will reduce its annual alumina production capacity by approximately 390,000 metric tons to align production with smelter curtailments Alcoa announced earlier this year and to reflect prevailing market conditions.

The curtailments will reduce Alcoa’s refining capacity in the Atlantic region by about 4 percent and are already underway. The Atlantic region represents about 50 percent of Alcoa’s total global refining capacity of 18 million metric tons per year.

“Alcoa is taking these steps to avoid aggravating alumina oversupply in the Atlantic region and to enhance the efficiency of our refining system,” said Chris Ayers, president of Alcoa’s Global Primary Products.

“We will continue to monitor market conditions and will take further action if warranted.”

In January of this year, Alcoa announced the closure or curtailment of 531,000 metric tons of smelting capacity. Of that, 291,000 represented the permanent closure of capacity in Tennessee and Texas that had been idled since 2009. Another 240,000 metric tons, or 5 percent of Alcoa’s smelting capacity, represented curtailments to be taken in Portovesme, Italy and La Coruña and Aviles, Spain.

Alcoa has reached agreement with government authorities and unios in both Italy and Spain on the curtailments. The 90,000 metric ton curtailment in the Spanish smelters has started and is scheduled to be complete by the first half of this year. The smelter in Portovesme, Italy, with a capacity of 150,000 metric tons, will finalize curtailment by the end of the year.

Alcoa is the world’s leading producer of primary and fabricated aluminum, as well as the world’s largest miner of bauxite and refiner of alumina.

Alcoa employs approximately 61,000 people in 31 countries across the world.

www.alcoa.com