Alcoa has money

Pittsburgh-based aluminum producer Alcoa Corp. recorded a net loss of $374 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, causing it to finish the year with a net loss of $102 million.

The results include a $217 million charge to tax expenses to record what the company calls "a valuation allowance on Alcoa Alumínio's (Brazil) deferred tax assets" and to reflect lower global aluminum and alumina prices, higher energy costs and higher costs for raw materials such as sodium hydroxide and carbon anodes.

Despite the loss, the company says in 2022 it "maintained a strong balance sheet, provided capital returns to stockholders and advanced sustainably through strategic restarts of capacity and progression of its breakthrough technologies."

In the technology category, Alcoa mentions its Elysis joint venture with Rio Tinto, which is creating a process designed to eliminate "all direct carbon-dioxide emissions from the traditional smelting process, emitting instead pure oxygen." In March of last year, the Elysis JV announced it had sold metal from the emerging technology for use in Apple's iPhone SE.

"Last year, global turbulence negatively influenced costs for energy and raw materials, and we saw significant variance on product pricing between the first and second halves of 2022," says Alcoa President and CEO Roy Harvey.

In 2023, the company projects total alumina shipments, including externally sourced alumina, to range between 12.7 and 12.9 million metric tons, a decrease of 0.5 million metric tons compared with 2022.

The firm's Aluminum segment is expected to ship between 2.5 and 2.6 million metric tons of semifinished and finished aluminum, which Alcoa calls "consistent with 2022."