Alro sales up 50%

The strong growth in the aluminium price on the international markets is starting to show in the financial statements of Romanian aluminium smelter Alro Slatina. The smelter, which is held by American trader Marco International, logged about $105 million (345.4bn ROL) in Q1 turnover, up 50% from the $70 million last year. Profit surged, as well, reaching $16 million from the $11 million in Q1, 2003. Alro therefore stands chances of bettering the 2004 goals set by shareholders for the entire Alro-Alprom Group. The group’s consolidated turnover was supposed to reach $400 million this year. Alprom Slatina processes the aluminium supplied by Alro and is held by Marco International, as well. The growth in Alro’s turnover and profit is largely due to the strong growth of the aluminium price to over $1,800/tonne this year, more than 20% higher than in early 2003. At the same time, Alro boosted its production capacity from 180,000 tonnes/year to some 196,000 tonnes/year. Marco bought Alro and Alprom in 2002 and will begin procedures to merge them into a single entity this year. ZF