Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), the world's fourth-largest aluminium smelter, plans to increase exports of higher-margin products to Europe and says its production is not affected by strikes in Bahrain. "We will increase our sales in Europe (this year) and have a slight decrease in the Middle East ... because we want to develop our value-added products' share", Chief Executive Officer Laurent Schmitt told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
Last year, Alba generated 50 percent of its sales in Bahrain, 20 percent elsewhere in the region and 10 percent in Europe, to where it plans to sell more billets, foundry alloys and rolling slaps. Schmitt said production at Alba had not been affected by labour strikes and road closures during the recent unrest in Bahrain. "We didn't lose any production, we kept our plant at full capacity," he said. The island kingdom saw weeks of protests by its Shia majority against its Sunni rulers until security forces cleared a central square in Manama last week.
Alba is majority-owned by Bahrain's sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat, which floated a 10 percent stake in the company in an initial public offering (IPO) last year. The smelter that has an annual production capacity of 860,000 tonnes swung to a full-year net profit of 138 million Bahraini dinars ($366 million) in 2010 on higher sales. Schmitt said Alba expected its full-year profit to rise this year on the back of higher aluminium prices, but declined to give a more precise outlook.
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