Only one of the offers presented includes the production of primary aluminum, but conditions it to a competitive energy price
Two options to save Alcoa’s avilesina plant and its 317 workers. Of the seven investors who expressed their interest in recent weeks – six of them made a non-binding proposal and another only signed the confidentiality contract – only two have followed, up to now, the bidding. Both met yesterday with the multinational aluminera and with the representatives of the workers in Madrid to detail their offers and can not be more disparate among themselves. However, both meet the requirements agreed by the staff and Alcoa in the signing of the ERE: a future project and the maintenance of all jobs.
One of the investors focused his proposal exclusively on the Avilés plant. However, encouraged by Alcoa itself and the discomfort that unleashed its offer in the representatives of the workers of the factory in La Coruña, he promised to visit the Galician plant today and does not rule out bidding at the end also for it. What is clear is that it will only operate with the casting part, this is the recycling furnace of the Avilés plant, which produces some 50,000 tons of aluminum per year and whose energy cost is contained. It will industrialize the factory downwards, without counting the electrolysis series – where primary aluminum is produced and those responsible for the high electricity bill of the plants – and will increase production to employ all workers.
The alternative offered by the other investor is to acquire the two factories and operate them in an integral way: casting and electrolysis series. And he is willing to take on the almost 700 workers that make up the Avilés and La Coruña plants. His plan is, not in vain, conditioned to the achievement of a stable, predictable and, above all, competitive energy price. Therefore, the focus is now on the central Government, specifically on the steps taken by the ministries of Industry and Ecological Transition – it has the competence in the matter of energy – to lower the electricity tariff of the electrointensives. Something that in the opinion of the avilesino committee already had to be solved. «The government did not do its job and that’s why there were fewer offers than we expected,» lamented José Manuel Gómez de la Uz, chairman of the committee. They remain concerned about the future of the plant and ask the government to honor its commitments, although «guaranteeing all jobs by June 30 is a great achievement,» said Alberto Grijalbo, another member of the committee.
For the moment, the Ministry of Industry and the Principality are analyzing the offers that have been submitted and as evidenced last Wednesday by the Minister of Industry, Employment and Tourism, Isaac Pola, they hope to receive some more firm proposal in the coming days. Nothing is known, however, of the future status for the electrointensivas since the National Commission of the Market and Competition (CNMC) claimed improvements that would make it less restrictive. At the last Alcoa conflict monitoring meeting held in the ministry headed by Reyes Maroto, a representative of the Energy area, dependent on the Ecological Transition department, was asked to report on the progress made in this regulation.
Workers fear that the government will not approve it in time and investors reject the option to re-produce primary aluminum. That is why next Thursday they will start a march on foot to Madrid with which they intend to demand «an immediate solution» and real guarantees beyond the consecutive promises made by Maroto, Teresa Ribera and even the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez.
