The aluminium plant is effectively closed and no longer making aluminium. The plant; jointly owned By Kaiser aluminium and Rio Tinto, has not made much money from smelting for the past 10 years.
The reason it was kept open and viable as a smelting plant was due to the fact that it part funded the construction of the Wylfa nuke plant and consequently purchased its electricity for next to nothing.
The smelting plant was a huge user of electricity; approx 12% of all electricity generated in Wales went to the plant. It would cut the electricity to the plant for up to 30 mins a few times a day and divert the electricity into the grid. Therefore receiving the millions of kwh for next to nothing and selling back to the grid at the going rate for electricity producers.
So most of the profits it made, was from selling electricity not producing aluminium.
At the moment it is being operated with a tiny amount of staff producing remelt; existing aluminum being reshaped. One of the reasons for keeping a small business going is the land covenant. When the plant is no longer used it must be returned to green fields. This will cost a lot so producing a bit of remelt puts off the day of reckoning.
There is a planning application for a biomass plant but this was never going to be used to make aluminum, contrary to popular local belief and Rio Tinto claims. The biomass plant (if it gets built, there are three other applications for biomass plants on the island at the mo’) is going to sell the electricity and bag the subsidies, which is being objected to by other biomass users.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business-i ... -27562765/
There is also a prison being mooted for the site.
