Government officials of Bosnia’s Federation (FBiH) part have announced they will meet on Friday to discuss how to help Bosnia’s only aluminium smelter, ‘Aluminij Mostar’, avoid a shutdown due to high debt, but the company said on Saturday it cannot wait until Friday.

The management of the company held a press conference on Saturday, where they said that the company will be shut out from the power grid on Sunday at midnight due to debt, and urged the government of the Bosniak-Croat shared semi-autonomous FBiH entity to help avoid this, as it would mean Aluminij's downfall.

The company has been experiencing financial difficulties for years due to increasing production costs and low aluminium prices for years, and at the end of September its debt was worth nearly 350 million BAM.

“Aluminij cannot wait for Friday,” acting director of the Company, Drazen Pandza, said on Saturday, adding that the electricity supplier is still going to shut the company out of the power grid unless the FBiH Government asks it to suspend the move by Sunday.  

Shutting the producer out of the power grid instantly would “freeze up” the liquid aluminium in the electrolytic cells, which could cause explosions and endanger the lives of employees, a company statement said.

The statement said that, if only one of the electrolytic cells would experience a planned shutdown of power, it would cost more than 90,000 Euro to put it into operation again.  

“Aluminij has 256 electrolytic cells, and since this shutdown would be unplanned (…) the liquid metal would stay trapped in them, so making them operational again would cost more than a billion BAM. In essence, this shutdown would mean an end to Aluminij,” it said.  

According to Aluminij’s Independent Union, such a shutdown would be detrimental to the livelihood of thousands of people.  

“There are the 900 employees with families. There are also those who depend on us, who cooperate with us, business partners, it would mean a complete crash,” Aluminij’s Independent Union director Romeo Bioksic said in September.  

1 EUR = 1.95583 BAM