Romanian aluminium smelter Alro to halt ops over power cost rise

BUCHAREST, March 5 (Reuters) - Romania's Alro SA ROALR.BX , one of Europe's biggest primary aluminium smelters and controlled by Vimetco NV , said on Wednesday it planned to suspend some operations due to a surge in energy costs.

Alro said the mandatory quota of green certificates or carbon permits for 2013 was set at 0.224 green certificates/MWh by Romania's Energy Regulatory Authority. This was nearly double the previous year when it was 0.1188.

"The green certificates quota, which rose 17 percent above an initial estimate, will negatively impact our financial results for 2014," Alro said in a statement to the Bucharest bourse.

"The company will draft a closure plan for an important part of key operations producing primary aluminium, and drastically cut energy consumption."

It said its 2013 results were also impacted by "the continuous descending trend of the aluminium prices on the international market."

Last year, the final price per megawatt-hour that Alro had to pay was twice as high as the European Union average.

(Reporting by Radu Marinas, editing by David Evans)

((radu.marinas@thomsonreuters.com)(+40 21 305 5263)(Reuters Messaging: radu.marinas.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))

Keywords: ROMANIA ALRO/