Columbia Ventures Agrees to Purchase Smelter

Columbia Ventures Corp. has agreed to buy the dormant Kaiser Aluminum smelter in Mead, Wash.

Houston-based Kaiser Aluminum Corp. has reached an agreement to sell its Mead, Wash., smelter to an affiliate of Columbia Ventures Corp. for about $4 million. The smelter has been idled for about three years when Kaiser deemed it too expensive to pay for the annual maintenance costs. The company added that it would cost around $16 million to restart the smelter, and moved the smelter to permanently idle the plant.

Columbia Ventures said it hopes to restart the anode baking operation and sell those anodes to other affiliates of CVC and/or third parties. The company, which has investments in aluminum manufacturing and telecommunications, said it may also maintain an ability to produce 50,000 metric tons of aluminum to be used "if and when we see a favorable combination of aluminum and power prices."

Under the agreement with CVC, Kaiser would retain ownership and responsibility for a closed site adjacent to the facility that was used historically for the storage of spent potliners. Through a cooperative agreement with the Washington State Department of Ecology, the company completed substantial work in 2001 to further safeguard the closed site and surrounding properties.