West Virginia daily

A year ago Tuesday, nearly 1,500 union workers went on strike at Ormet Corp's 267,868mt/year aluminium smelter and rolling mill in Hannibal, Ohio. Since then, much has changed, although the work stoppage persists.

Ormet recently sold the mill to Aleris for $133-mil and sources close to the company told Platts it has decided to run only the casthouse and continue selling billet to Accuride Corp. Ormet spokeswoman Linda Regelman said the Wheeling, West Virginia-based company still has no plans to sell the smelter. She neither confirmed or denied reports that the company intends to operate the casthouse once the strike by the United Steelworkers union ends, assuming it does. Nor does Ormet, at least for now, apparently have plans to restart the smelter for the first time in almost a year. According to one source, Ormet has sold the copper anode rods from two of the smelter's six potlines.

Ormet officials have told the Ohio Public Utilities Commission the smelter would remain shut unless it could find cheaper electricity than the market-based power it was forced to buy after a long-term power supply deal with Entergy Power Marketing expired at the end of last year. Ormet is asking the PUC to order American Electric Power's Ohio Power subsidiary to accept Ormet back as a customer, at favourable industrial rates. AEP/Ohio Power are opposing the request. A PUC order is expected by early next year.

Sources said Ormet's decision to run the casthouse came at a board of directors meeting last week. Less than 100 people would probably be needed to run the casthouse, meaning a major jobs cut announcement is expected by Ormet within a couple of weeks. If Ormet does not restart any of the potlines at the Hannibal smelter, the company most likely will purchase the metal required for the casting operations, sources said.

Accuride spokeswoman Eva Schmitz confirmed her company was buying billet from Ormet. "We do have a longstanding relationship with Ormet," she said. Throughout the strike, "they have continued to send us a good, quality product on time."

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