Alcoa, Ignis Equity Holdings announce San Ciprian smelter restart process

Alcoa (AA) and its joint venture partner, Ignis Equity Holdings, announced that the restart process of the San Ciprian smelter in Spain will resume. On April 28, Alcoa’s San Ciprian complex was impacted by a widespread power outage across Spain. As a result of the outage, both the San Ciprian refinery and smelter were affected, significantly impacting the ability to reach a timely and full restart of the smelter. Upon assessing the damage from the outage, the joint venture paused the restart until the Spanish Government could provide sufficient details on the cause of the power outage and the measures being taken to prevent a reoccurrence. The joint venture estimates that the restart will be completed by mid-2026. Based on recent pricing, the company is revising its prior estimates and expects to record a net loss for the smelter of approximately $90M to $110M, or 35c to 42c per common share in 2025, and associated cash used by operations for the smelter is expected to approximate $110M to $130M in 2025. The unfavorable change from prior estimates is due to a delay in the completion of the restart and related revenue from 2025 into 2026.