The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the aluminium industry has led many smelters to diversify their operating strategy and production levels, and Alvance Aluminium's Dunkerque smelter was no exception, its managing director Am?(C)lie Hennion told Fastmarkets.
Hennion explained that flexibility was key for the Dunkerque smelter in France and that there was still a high level of market uncertainty for 2021.
"After a week, we decided to lower production, not a lot but enough to give us a bit of room for manoeuvre so that the workload on remaining employees would be manageable in case even more people [must take time off]," Hennion said in an interview with Fastmarkets
"Our production went down by only 15% for less than two months [over March and April] before we adjusted our product mix to meet the demand of our clients," Hennion added.
Production at Dunkerque was then ramped back up over May and June - and was back to its normal capacity of 280,000 tonnes per year by July.
Hennion took over as managing director of the smelter earlier this year - replacing Guillaume de Go??s and leaving...