Employees of the Alro Slatina aluminum production plant in Romania, controlled by Russian group Vimetco, were on Wednesday, February 16, 2022, in the third day of protest in front of the Government headquarters.

They demand the dismissal of the minister of energy Virgil Popescu and practical solutions in order not to reach the closure of the third (of the factory’s five) production hall, daily Adevarul reported. The employees fear the entire plant may be closed down.

Alro Slatina (BVB: ALR), one of the largest vertically integrated aluminum producers in Europe and one of the largest Romanian energy consumers, has already started a program of total closure of the activity because of the high energy prices. In the first phase, the production will be cut by 60%.

Last month, energy minister Virgil Popescu told Alro Slatina trade unionists that he was in talks for the company to buy electricity from power generators from Bulgaria and Serbia, according to the leader of the Free Trade Union Alro, Ioan Popa.

Last week, the Government  mandated the ministry of energy to start talks with the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission to extend until 2030 the state aid scheme to subsidize from the budget the large industrial electricity consumers in Romania, hit by electricity prices driven up by the costly CO2 certificates.

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andrei@romania-insider.com