Last year (2019) was one of the weaker ones in terms of Slovalco’s economic performance.

From the point of view of health and safety, we did not record any lost-time injuries in relation to both our employees and our contractors. During the year, we also managed to achieve a downward trend in the sickness rate. However, we have seen several incidents with high risk potential that fortunately did not turn into more serious incidents.

Metal and aluminium production in Europe, where our company operates, is experiencing a difficult period and these circumstances have also influenced our results. Low aluminium prices on the London Metal Exchange, higher prices of raw materials, other external market factors as well as the impact of political decisions have made Slovalco’s result negative. Nevertheless, we have been able to positively influence this outcome by our activities, thus mitigating the adverse impacts of external influences. We were able to meet the technological parameters at an excellent level, exceeded the planned production volumes, and in the long term we demonstrate very good stability and low deviations in all processes. This is also due to our employees’ approach to challenges where they behave responsibly as process owners, proactively propose solutions and improve things.

Based on careful the considerations of shareholders with regard to the highly pessimistic prospects and expectations of commodity market developments, it was decided at the end of the year that, as of January 2020, it would be necessary to shut down part of production capacities to reduce liquid aluminium production and product volumes.

As far as investment activity is concerned, we have continued the work on the project of installation of the seventh aggregate in order to ensure a more stable and secure supply of electricity with the possibility of further increase of production in the future. We have also been working very intensively on the project of remelting the process waste, which offers Slovalco a new perspective and possibilities for future business activities.

In 2020, we are going to face a difficult and challenging period, in which, however, we also want to confirm the long-term level of excellent technological parameters. We also want to use this period to speed up the steps related to reduction of fixed costs, finding additional reserves and then stabilizing the changes so that they become sustainable even if markets return to better positions.

Milan Veselý

Chief Executive Officer