VALCO needs strategic investor to survive — GIADEC

Compounding the picture, current capital requirements identified for turning the company around run well into hundreds of millions of dollars: an estimated $351 million to optimise and run two full production lines, and a further $239 million to upgrade cell technology on three currently idle lines, alongside tens of millions more for carbon, cell-line and cast-house equipment upgrades.

The Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) has lost more than a quarter of its already limited operating capacity since June this year, the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation (GIADEC) has confirmed, intensifying the urgency behind Cabinet’s push to bring in a strategic equity investor.

Officials say this debt cannot realistically be settled through VALCO’s own operations, given the company’s current financial state, and that a return to profitability, driven by fresh capital and modern technology, is the only viable path to clearing it.