Controversy continues over Russian Links to Aughinish alumina refinery.
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The Pat Kenny Show. With timber living log cabins. Saturday and Sunday from 10am. On Newstalk. Conversation that counts. Well, I'm joined in studio by Conor Gallagher, crime and security correspondent at the Irish Times. Good morning, Conor. Morning, Pat. We want to talk to you about Ohinish Illumina and the stories you've been running about that particular plant and what it might be contributing to the Russian war effort. So explain what he does.
So Othinish Illumina is a vast refinery in the Shannon Estuary in County Limerick. It employs about a thousand people, a little bit more.
What is the significance of the Aughinish alumina refinery?
And it imports bauxite, raw material from mines in Guinea and Brazil. And using huge amounts of heat and power and caustic soda transforms that into alumina. Alumina is the raw material needed to make aluminium. So they ship that alumina from their dedicated jetty. to refineries in Europe and, crucially for our point, Russia, where it is shipped by train to huge places in Siberia and turned into finished aluminium.
Now, I remember when it opened many, many years ago, it was always the subject of some controversy, you know, whether it was an appropriate place. But it's there now and it's functioning. It was threatened with closure over the years. It's now owned by a Russian parent.
That's right. He used to be owned by a Canadian company, then was bought by the Swiss conglomerate Glencore and then was bought by Rusal. And Rusal is a Russian metals giant, which was founded by the oligarch Oleg Deripaska about 25, 26 years ago. and Rusal continues to own it. Rusal is also crucially judged the critical company. It's not Russian, it's not state-owned, but it's judged the critical national asset by the Kremlin in terms of defence.
Now, as you say, some of this alumina is exported to Russia and goes to whatever use. It could be in making armaments, which is, I suppose, the point of contention. It also goes to refineries in Europe to make all sorts of things.
Yes, so at least... Last year and the year before, Europe depended on Agnes for about 30% of its aluminum needs. And that goes into making almost everything, you know, cans of Coke, cutlery. Plates, but also crucially, the airlines, or sorry, aircraft, cars, you know, one of their biggest customers is Airbus. Another one is BMW. So not only does Russia really depend on it, Europe really depends on it too, which certainly complicates it.
Now, this obviously brings about if this plant was to be sanctioned because it's exporting to Russia. This could impact its exporting to other markets. I don't know how sophisticated and subtle they could be. But you were mentioning to me during the break, there's a wrinkle in all of this. If it turns out that in the wings of a drone, there is some trace of Ahenish alumina, which might be mixed with other aluminium. I mean, it may not be pure Ahenish. It could be from various smelters around the place. But it also goes to Airbus, who make military aircraft. And some of those have ended up in Ukraine.
Yeah, Airbus aircraft are used by the Ukrainian forces, who also use, like, Leonardo aircraft and, you know, fighter jets manufactured in Sweden and that sort of thing. And there's a very good chance Ahlis Aluminum is going into these things. So it's very possible, if not likely, that alumina from County Limerick is on both sides of the war in Ukraine, which, yeah, just underlines, I guess, how complicated and fraught the issue is.
Yeah. And supply chains are extraordinarily complicated. I mean, in this case, whatever ends up in a Russian drone, as I said, may have come from many different smelters, all mixed up at the end of the day.
Yeah, we, you know, as part of our investigation, we spoke to experts in alumina and the manufacturer of aluminium. And they said that it's not like, you know, alumina from Aachenis goes into this pot, which is used, it goes to this company. Generally, you fill up your tanks, your silos with alumina from different places, and then that will all go into the smelter to make aluminium. So it's not like there'll be a mixture of different materials all through the process.
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