Higher electricity tariffs for smelters in 2017
The Icelandic national power company Landsvirkjun supplies three aluminum smelters with power. The graph below shows how the electricity tariffs in this business have developed in the past ten years. As clearly can be seen on the graph, the electricity tariffs paid by the three smelters were somewhat higher in 2017 than the year before.
The main explanation for the higher tariffs in 2017 is the rising price of aluminum. Two of the three smelters buying electricity from Landsvirkjun have their power tariff linked to the price of aluminum at the London Metal Exchange (LME), while the tariff to the third smelter (Rio Tinto / ÍSAL) is linked to US consumer price index (CPI).
In 2017, as ever since the re-negotiation of 2010, the aluminum plant of Rio Tinto (ÍSAL) in Straumsvík paid the highest power tariff. The lowest price was paid by the smelter of Century Aluminum (Norðurál), while the smelter of Alcoa (Fjarðaál) paid slightly higher tariff than Century.
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