Glencore confirms shutdown of Portovesme zinc line

Glencore confirms the stop of the zinc line at the Sulcis plant. The announcement came from the CEO of the subsidiary Portovesme srl, Davide Garofalo, during the hearing before the Productive Activities Commission at the Chamber of Deputies. The official confirmation means a stop to the most important line of the non-ferrous metallurgical company operating in the industrial hub of south-western Sardinia.

The administrator has, in fact, confirmed what had been announced for some time, namely the shutdown of the line that transforms blende into zinc at Portovesme. A decision that, as pointed out by the unions, risks sending 1,200 workers into redundancy. On the horizon, as announced a few days ago during the meeting at Mimit, there is the hypothesis of the entry of new investors to take over the zinc line and possibly also the lead line, which has been at a standstill since March last year. For this very reason, a visit by representatives of Mimit, together with Glencore executives and potential buyers, is planned for 20 December. The project for the production of lithium for batteries from the black mass processing of spent batteries, worth over EUR 300 million, remains in the pipeline.

However, the Glencore affair is not the only one. For some time, the Portovesme industrial centre has been awaiting the relaunch plan of Eurallumina, the company controlled by Russia's Rusal, which, on the strength of an investment plan worth around EUR 300 million, intends to restart the plants with a restructuring operation and relaunch the production of alumina (from the transformation of bauxite) from which primary aluminium is then obtained. Stopping the investment plan and revamping is the energy issue. Because the refinery needs steam to function, which is produced with gas. A turning point should come with the rewriting of the new energy decree that paves the way for the arrival of gas on the island.

Travelling at a very slow pace is the revitalisation of the plant that the Italian-Swiss company Sider Alloys took over from Alcoa. The plant modernisation project has not yet been concluded, since the steps for the reconstruction of the electrolysis room and electrolytic cells must be completed. What is stopping the process, according to the trade unions, is the failure to provide the resources related to Sace guarantees. Funding is necessary, as claimed by the company, to relaunch the entire production system.

'The situation is quite delicate,' emphasises Franco Bardi, secretary of the South West Sardinia Chamber of Labour, 'because for years we have been waiting for the relaunch of this company and aluminium production. Time passes but we still cannot see the relaunch'. From the secretary of the Chamber of Labour also an appeal to the government. 'We must not forget that Invitalia has 20% of the company,' he adds, 'so we ask the government to take responsibility and make a decisive intervention, also because we believe there are the conditions to relaunch the entire production sector. For Bardi, 'the disputes must be tackled together, first of all unravelling the knot relating to energy costs, given that all the crises revolve around this problem'.