Company puts aluminum smelters on market
John Stucke - Staff writer
Aluminum factories in Longview, Wash., are for sale as the owners struggle with low aluminum prices and idled plants.
McCook Metals LLC, controlled by a Chicago investment group called Michigan Avenue Partners, will unload its newly acquired smelters in Longview as it deals with market weakness and bankruptcy.
"The weakness in the U.S. aluminum market is a direct result of predatory pricing," said Michael Lynch, chairman of the investment group.
The consortium announced its Scottsboro, Ala., rolling mill business was forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy by a lender, PPM Financing Inc.
The rolling mill has curtailed operations until terms of a restructuring deal can be hammered out.
However, the bankruptcy dragged sister company McCook Metals down, too.
All of the properties will be sold by year's end, Lynch said, victims of what he termed monopolistic behavior of unnamed multinational aluminum corporations.
"We can't be the only ones out there fighting for the American aluminum industry and its manufacturing jobs," Lynch said. "Without support from the U.S. Department of Justice, this is our only option."
McCook Metals picked up the Longview properties in February from Alcoa, the world's largest aluminum company.
When Alcoa took over Reynolds Metals Co. last year, it had to sell several assets to resolve antitrust concerns.
McCook filed suit against Alcoa at the time to protest what it claimed was Alcoa's control over high-purity aluminum in North America.
To resolve the dispute, Alcoa sold the Longview properties to McCook, which broadened its ability to make specialized aluminum products for the aerospace industry.
The company never got started in Longview, however.
Instead, McCook signed a power curtailment deal with the Bonneville Power Administration that will keep the smelter idled until next April.
Similar deals were struck with most aluminum companies in the Northwest to soothe the energy crunch.
With Longview offline, the Scottsboro mill had to find a new source of competitively priced metal. It failed, said spokesman Paul Frank, even as aluminum prices sagged to less than 65 cents per pound this week.
With a competitively priced supply of metal, Scottsboro had to suspend deliveries.