Affected by environmental issues, Norsk Hydro's Alunorte alumina refinery in Brazil recently announced that it has stopped production, and the plant has continued to produce at half capacity since this March.

As waste deposition area of ​​the plant almost exceeded its load, current conflict between Norsk Hydro and local authorities made it hard to build a new residue treatment plant, so Norsk Hydro decided to discontinue.

Alunorte's shutdown caused Norsk Hydro's share price to fall by 13%, hitting a 21-month low. However, aluminum prices soared by 3% to a recent high owing to this shutdown. Norsk Hydro mentioned that the resolution also led to shutdown of Paragominas bauxite plant, and aluminum production such as adjacent Albras plants might be affected.

Closing Alunorte and Paragominas plants caused serious loss to Norsk Hydro. It was understood that alumina production of Alunorte plant in 2017 was 6.4 million tons, equivalent to 10% of global production (excluding China production).