Twelve, nine, six … Thus, drop-by-drop, the list of investors interested in buying the primary aluminum factories of Alcoa in A Coruña and Avilés has been deflated, which only then, passing into the hands of others, would be saved from the partial closure from July. At the moment, the multinational handles half a dozen offers, but they are not yet binding, so the screen has not finished. The company wants to have next week, when the last month of the truce starts, firm commitments. Let’s see how many of the six are left. The multinational has summarized in a sheet who are the investors, what plants they want and what conditions they put. And it turns out that everyone wants that of Avilés, either alone or together with his twin from A Coruña. But none of them is interested in acquiring the Galician factory individually, but three do want it in the same lot with Avilés. In addition, according to the summary note prepared by the multinational, to which this newspaper has had access, these three proposals to stay with the complete lot include something fundamental: return to produce primary aluminum, starting again the electrolysis tanks (stopped by Alcoa temporarily since February). It is a sine qua non condition included in the agreement reached between the company and the unions in January to postpone the application of the ERE to July 1.
The three offers, which are not yet binding, also condition the operation so that the remuneration framework for the electrointensive industry guarantees competitive electricity costs as of June 30. Behind these three offers that include A Coruña are Liberty, Parter and IR group. The latter has a condition not included in Alcoa’s internal agreement: transferring workers to the Netherlands between one year and 20 months until finding an energy solution in Spain. The other three offers to acquire only Avilés are signed by Aludium (who already bought a few years the factories of Alcoa in Alicante and Amorebieta), Quantum and Cunext. The first two do not want to know anything about resuming the production of aluminum, so they do not put the condition of having a stable remuneration framework for the electric cost. And it is the very process of obtaining the metal (by electrolysis) is that it consumes the bulk of the electrical energy of this type of facility.
The two offers exclude re-starting the electrolysis tanks and instead invest in the Avilés smelter, the only part of the factory that Alcoa has committed to keep open beyond July 1 and, in theory, it is not for sale. Therefore, the Avilesina plant would not be free from layoffs. The investment fund Quantum Capital also proposes to apply an employment regulation file, an extreme not included in the agreement between unions and Alcoa.Cunext, an Andalusian holding specialized in The transformation of copper is the only one that does intend to resume the manufacture of aluminum in the Asturian plant. Five of the six that pretend to Alcoa put, in addition, a condition that Alcoa surely will not accept: to invest more than the 20 millions committed by the multinational for the re-start of the vats if it managed to sell the plants. In this way, the offer of Liberty It would be the only one that apparently would meet the requirements demanded by the parties. It is a multinational specialized in the transformation of steel, aluminum and metal recycling, based in London, and operates the only foundry of its kind in the United Kingdom.
