Yesterday we received a visit from Arnaud Soirat, Chairman and CEO of Rio Tinto Alcan Primary Metal. The purpose of his visit was to meet employees and take stock of the site’s situation in terms of health and safety and operational performance.
The visit included reviews in the Carbon, Electrolysis and Foundry sectors, with the Maintenance department present for each sector. In each sector, the performance achieved this year and our objectives were presented and discussed with Arnaud Soirat, and a tour of the site provided an opportunity to review the improvements made in terms of machinery and pedestrian risks, as well as the measures taken in terms of near misses and major risks.
A meeting was held with two representatives of each trade union organisation, and then with management, to discuss the situation on the aluminium market, the progress of energy supplies for Aluminium Dunkerque, and the situation at the plant.
The points to remember following this visit are as follows:
- HSE: the barometer is in the red and calls for a redoubling of our HSE efforts on the ground. Very good work was done on machinery pedestrian risks with the involvement of everyone during kaizens to find improvements. We were encouraged to apply the same rigour and quality to other areas of the plant in order to significantly improve our health and safety performance. The period of change we are going through is conducive to incidents because we are more distracted and we must remain very vigilant.
- Plant operation: The plant’s operational performance is excellent and we can be proud of it.
- Cost reduction: we must continue to find ways of reducing costs, the other sites have a dynamic that allows them to get results faster than Dunkirk. It is important not to be left behind in order to become more competitive.
- Voluntary departure plan: Aluminium Dunkerque must improve its competitiveness in order to be able to self-finance its modernisation and growth investments. We have a good industrial relations dialogue and we must continue to work together at AD to find solutions to keep the plant running with fewer employees and an optimised organisation.
- Investments: Aluminium Dunkerque has received substantial support in recent years, investing $150 million between 2011 and 2013. This year, over 20 million dollars will be invested at Dunkirk : 40% of this amount will be for projects of less than 1 million dollars which are decided at plant level. We have a substantial budget in hand to keep our plant up to date.
- Energy: Initial progress has been made with a reduction in the Exeltium tariff until 2019. A skilled RTA team is in place to negotiate further improvements to Dunkirk’s future energy supply contract. Further discussions will take place in the autumn.
Our performance is key to making AD the most competitive aluminium smelter in Europe and attracting investment for growth.