Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), the Bahrain-based international aluminium smelter, has managed to close the first half of 2017 with a sales volume of 453,089 metric tonnes, down by 3.9 per cent year-on-year (YoY), with the recovery process of reduction Line 5 underway.

The company also reported that production volume reached 453,395 metric tonnes, down by 4.5 per cent YoY.

Additionally, sales and production volumes for the second quarter of 2017 topped 210,157 metric tonnes and 204,617 metric tonnes respectively, it said.

Alba’s value-added sales averaged 61 per cent of total shipments in Q2 2017 versus 55 per cent for the same period in 2016 and 58 per cent for the first half of 2017 compared to 54 per cent in H1 2016.

Alba experienced a power station outage on April 5 that resulted in a temporary loss of power in all five reduction lines for approximately three hours. Reduction Lines 1-4 started operating at normal levels immediately, while Alba said Reduction Line 5 was partially running and is expected to be fully operational in Q3 2017.

The company estimated that the incident will result in a loss of 3 to 5 percent of its total production for 2017.

Alba’s chief executive officer Tim Murray said: “We are pleased with the pace of Line 5 recovery process, which has allowed us to reduce the impact on lost production.”

“We are also committed to safely bringing back Line 5 to full production in the coming weeks,” he said.

Alba will release its second quarter 2017 financial results to the public on July 24, as well as upload the IR presentation, it added. – TradeArabia News Service