Noel Jarrett

The Aluminum Industry in the 1980’s

About four years ago, two years after the first OPEC oil embargo, economic projections into the future showed four major problems facing the aluminum industry in the 1980’s and beyond: 1. Ever increasing cost and probable decreasing availability of all energy, more pointedly, electrical energy. 2. Dependence on foreign supplies of raw materials—bauxite and petroleum, from which anode coke is made. 3. High capital intensity—ever increasing capital investment per annual ton of aluminum. 4. Ever tightening environmental controls of evolutions and waste disposal.