The new owners of Britain’s last aluminium smelter have announced a £120 million investment that will create 300 jobs in the Scottish Highlands.
Liberty House and Simec said that they planned to expand the Lochaber smelter to include “downstream” manufacturing, making car wheels out of aluminium forged in its hydro-powered smelters.
The companies, which are part of the GFG Alliance, the association between the businesses of Sanjeev Gupta and those of his father Parduman Gupta, yesterday completed the £330 million purchase from Rio Tinto of the Lochaber smelter and its nearby hydro-electricity plants at Fort William and Kinlochleven.
Sanjeev Gupta, executive chairman of Liberty House, said: “We hope this day will come to be recognised as the start of a bright new future for Highland industry.
“It puts Lochaber right at the heart of our vision for sustainable and integrated local production that can revitalise British manufacturing.” The 300 jobs come on top of 170 secured by the purchase of the plant. Liberty House was among the suitors interested in buying Tata Steel’s Port Talbot plant this year.
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Liberty and Simec plan to increase the capacity of the hydro-electric stations. Jay Hambro, GFG Alliance’s chief investment officer, said: “We have identified investment programmes to significantly increase power generation from existing assets and are studying how to create further capacity locally.”
Last week, Mr Gupta said there was a “clear opportunity” to build a scrap-based industry in Britain. “There is not much recycling in the UK unlike other places in the world,” he said, “so a gap has developed in the market”.