Alteo Alumina: Employees want new buyers to take over the complete plant area

The new filtration process has started working; speciality alumina producer Alteo is permitted to discharge waste-free water at sea. The eight buyers who are in the run will visit the plant site in France next week. The trade unions demand that they incorporate this new data in their offer, fearing that they will abandon the transformation of Bauxite.

The takeover firms for the world leader in speciality alumina Alteo in Gardanne might review their offer after the industrialist announced on 31^st August’20 that its discharges at sea now comply with standards. Faced with the difficulties in achieving this filtration objective, capable in particular of eliminating arsenic residues, five of the eight takeover offers in the hands of the Commercial Court of Marseille since 24^th July, intended to abandon this activity of transformation of the bauxite at the origin of the waste known as “red mud”.

"If the judge agrees with one of them, at least 200 direct jobs, and as many indirect jobs, are condemned", rises the inter-union gathered around the CGT delegate Harold Perillous.

“Nearly €60 million have been invested in this tool which now places the Provencal plant among the cleanest in the world in this category", according to management.

“This makes it a strategic site that has end-to-end control over the quality and ecological impacts of the production of speciality alumina. The state must assume its responsibilities and assert national sovereignty in this matter”, demands the inter-union.

It is also asking for a modification of the local PLU to perpetuate the Mange-Garri open-air storage site, the authorization of which expires next year.

Speciality aluminas are used in the manufacture of high-tech products, smartphones and others like batteries for electric vehicles. The Gardanne factory, formerly Péchiney, was created in 1894. It was taken over by the Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto and then in 2012 by the American investment funds HIG. In December, after a sharp economic downturn in its orders, Alteo was placed in bankruptcy. However, it generated 75% of its turnover in 2019 from export.

Three of the offers submitted propose to keep the current operating perimeter and the vast majority of the 511 jobs at the plant. That of Metalcorp Group, a subsidiary of the Monegasque group MRG specializing in the metal trade, plans to take over half of the €50 million in debt and maintain at least 450 jobs. It also wants to recover bauxite residues, for example for the decontamination of soiled soil. The former director of site operations, Xavier Perrier, is also carrying out a continuity project with an investment company. He plans to keep 430 jobs. This is also the case of United Sigma, specializing in business turnaround, associated with Chinese Chalco, a heavyweight in the production of alumina.

The other five offers support for the abandonment of bauxite processing. The takeover teams will visit the plant next week.

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