Alcoa's Australian unit reports 30% production cut at its alumina refinery

The aluminum producer said in a statement that, in a joint venture with Alumina Ltd, a unit of the refinery, mostly owned by Alcoa, was shut down, affecting process flows.

Alcoa's Kwinana refinery, with an annual capacity of 2.2 million tons, has switched to using diesel instead of gas in some of its operations as a result of ongoing gas shortages.

Gas supplies to Western Australia were cut due to an equipment failure that shut down Chevron Corp's 215 terajoule-per-day Wheatstone local gas plant on the 5th January.