Maputo, May 4, 2026 (Lusa) - Mozambique’s largest industry, Mozal, produced 248,000 tonnes of aluminium in the nine months before it closed in March, representing a 6% decrease compared to the same period in 2025, according to official data Lusa consulted on Monday. Data from Australia's South32, which manages the smelter near Maputo, show Mozal produced 265,000 tonnes of aluminium in the same nine months of the previous fiscal year. Sales fell 7% in the same period, from 246,000 to 229,000 tonnes.
South32 attributed the decline, in a recent market update consulted by Lusa, to “the smelter entering a maintenance and conservation period on 15 March 2026”.
However, sales actually rose by 8% in the quarter ending in March 2026, precisely due to the sale of the “remaining stock of finished products” ahead of the planned shutdown. Nevertheless, the statement adds, Mozal entered a maintenance and conservation regime “exceeding the production forecast by 3%”.
South32 confirmed on 16 March that Mozal, Mozambique’s largest industrial firm, has been in a maintenance and conservation regime since the previous day, expecting to spend €52.4 million on the suspension of smelting operations, including redundancy payments for workers.
“Over the past six years, we have engaged extensively with the Government of the Republic of Mozambique, with Eskom [the South African company that buys energy from Mozambique and sold it to the smelter] and with other stakeholders, but we have been unable to secure sufficient and affordable energy supplies for Mozal beyond March 2026,” said Graham Kerr, CEO of South32 (which owns 63.7% of the smelter).
With the smelter – one of the largest in Africa, employing over 1,000 direct staff and 4,000 indirect staff – currently shut down, South32 expects to spend US$60 million (€52.4 million), including on “contract termination”, with maintenance alone costing US$5 million (€4.4 million) annually.
“Although this is not the outcome we had hoped for, we are proud of the history and the significant contribution Mozal has made to the local community and the Mozambican economy over its 25 years of operation,” added Kerr, in the same statement from South32.
South32 had previously deemed the proposed electricity tariff for the Mozal aluminium smelter “totally unsustainable”, thereby justifying its closure, whilst not ruling out reactivating Mozambique’s largest industry should conditions change.
In a previous call with Australian investors, the transcript of which was accessed by Lusa and which involved the presentation of South32’s latest results, the chief executive explained that the “only formal offer” for energy supply from the South African utility Eskom was almost US$100 per megawatt-hour (MWh), whereas “outside China, less than 1%” of smelters have contracts above US$50 per MWh.
PVJ/LYT // AYLS
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