European Aluminum Giant Calls for Sanctions on Russian Metal

Norsk Hydro ASA, which operates the largest primary aluminum plant in Europe, is calling for sanctions to be imposed on Russian metals as European producers cut output to cope with surging energy costs.

“We see that European aluminum is really suffering from the war,” the firm’s Chief Executive Officer Hilde Merete Aasheim said in an interview on Bloomberg Television on Wednesday. “There is a paradox that a number of producers have been self-sanctioning in terms of Russian metal, while there are others that are buying Russian metal and are gaining from the war in many ways.”

Russian aluminum is currently not sanctioned in the US and across Europe, although a few European buyers are balking at purchasing the metal. Norsk Hydro won’t agree to any new Russian metal, while Novelis Inc. has excluded Russian production from a key tender for new contracts to supply its European factories next year. 

Alcoa Corp., the largest US aluminum producer, wrote in a letter to the London Metal Exchange in September that Russian metal shouldn’t be traded on the benchmark industrial metals bourse, according to people familiar with the matter.

Norsk Hydro, which also controls the world’s largest alumina refinery in Brazil, last month decided to curtail output at two smelters in Norway in response to reduced market demand and in August said it will close the Slovalco aluminum facility in Slovakia.