Ormet, as it winds down its aluminum business in the US, is seeking federal bankruptcy court permission to sell another 24,000 mt, plus or minus 5%, of sandy calcined metallurgical-grade alumina to Swiss commodities trader Trafigura AG for approximately $249/mt, or nearly $6 million.
Hannibal, Ohio-based Ormet told the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on Wednesday the alumina would be sold from its remaining inventory at the 540,000 mt/year Burnside alumina refinery in Louisiana.
Burnside was sold to Almatis, a subsidiary of Germany's Almatis GmbH, for $39.5 million earlier this year. Almatis is operating the refinery at a capacity of 500,000 mt/year in 2014.
Any objections or higher offers involving the proposed transaction with Trafigura, based in Lucerne, Switzerland, must be submitted to the court by 4 pm EDT March 31, Ormet said.
If no responses are filed with the court, Ormet said it then "will immediately submit a substantially similar version" of the proposed contract with Trafigura to the court.
Ormet added that "time is of the essence" to close on the sale.
If the deal is approved by Judge Mary Walrath, the alumina would be loaded onto an ocean-going vessel at the St. James Terminal on the Lower Mississippi River, Ormet said.
In late November, Ormet received final court approval to sell 32,000 mt of sandy calcined metallurgical-grade alumina to Trafigura for about $8.5 million.
Ormet, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization February 25, 2013, has divested most of its major assets. Still remaining is the idled 260,000 mt/year Hannibal smelter in southeastern Ohio. Calibre Group, tasked with marketing the plant, said it is getting interest from some parties that want to resume production at the smelter.
The smelter's final two potlines were shuttered in mid-October after Ohio regulators approved only a portion of the electricity rate relief Ormet said was necessary to keep the facility open.
