ALUMINA export volumes declined by 17.8 per cent from year-earlier levels in 2010 and at 1.57 million tonnes was the lowest level in decades.

What’s more, even though aluminium prices — which alumina prices trend after — tracked higher in 2010 than in 2009, earnings may have still been slightly higher year on year.

The most recent data from the Port Authority of Jamaica (PAJ) showed that Jamalco — the larger of the two operational refineries in Jamaica — exported 4.7 per cent less alumina from its Rocky Point, Clarendon, port facility, although the second- highest volume recorded by the Clarendon-based plant.

At the same time, 238,513 tonnes left Port Esquivel in Old Harbour, St Catherine, in 2010 after Windalco reopened its Ewarton plant in July.

Upon reopening, Windalco Ewarton expected to produce 321,000 tonnes of alumina for a half year’s production from its 650,000-tonne capacity, but evidentally fell short by 26 per cent.

Industry sources told the Business Observer that the shortfall reflected a battery of problems faced by plant operators when bringing the plant back on line — a factor which weighs heavily on the length of time it will take to reopen the Kirkvine plant, that is to say, the plant operators are said to be taking a more cautious approach.

Meanwhile, in Nain, St Elizabeth, Alpart — which neither produced nor exported alumina in 2010 — may be faced with a tougher decision to reopen with a skeletal maintenance staff that may not be sufficient to keep the plant commissionable.

Last October, Mining and Energy Minister James Robertson said that the Government is committed to reopening Windalco’s Kirkvine alumina plant by this March, but the minister was less decisive about the Alpart’s plant.

“We also are looking for the restart of Alpart, but I am not going to make an announcement or a prediction or look into my crystal ball for when that will happen,” he said.

The Windalco plants at Kirkvine in Manchester and Ewarton in St Catherine, as well as the Alpart plant at Nain, are majority owned and controlled by the Russian company UC Rusal.

The reopening of the Ewarton plant last year sparked optimism that Rusal was eyeing the resumption of production at its other Jamaican plants.

But the Alpart plant, which is the largest (produced 42 per cent of total up to 2008), is the least energy efficient of Jamaica’s alumina plants.

Robertson argued that with the growing demand for bauxite and alumina in the fast-growing economies of Brazil, China and India combined with the Government’s plans for the adoption of LNG as the fuel of choice for the bauxite/alumina industry “we believe we will be seeing the retooling of Alpart and Alpart will be reopened very soon”.

The minister added that “we (Government) are not going to stop until we reopen Alpart”.

Alumina prices up to last May — the last month the Bank of Jamaica reported alumina prices — were estimated to be 25 per cent higher than a year before but up to that point the value of alumina export was down 22.1 per cent.

Additionally, when looking at the first eight months of 2010, alumina export value was down 16.1 per cent.

Export volumes for the last four months of 2010 were 20 per cent higher than the comparative period in 2009 but were prices in the latter part of last year higher than in 2009 then annual export earnings may have been slightly higher in 2010.