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Bosnia alumina plant to restart after gas boost

Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:22am EST

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SARAJEVO, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Bosnia's Serb Republic has provided enough natural gas and fuel oil to allow the restart of production in the country's sole alumina plant Birac, the regional energy ministry said on Thursday.

Birac, majority owned by Lithuania's Ukio Bank Investment Group (UKB1L.VL), was forced to halt output last week after gas supplies from Russia were cut. It restored the production of zeolite at the weekend but needed more gas supplies for alumina.

"The ministry has provided 400 cubic metres of gas per hour which meets a technical minimum for the restart of alumina production and it also supplied the plant with needed quantities of fuel oil," it said in a statement.

The ministry also said that the nearby bauxite mine Milici has cut the price of bauxite by 10 percent to facilitate further alumina production.

Birac is located in the eastern town of Zvornik and uses 85 million cubic metres of gas annually. In a statement on Wednesday the company said it could not immediately estimate losses caused by the gas shortages which follow a row between Russia and Ukraine.

Bosnia has no gas reserves and imports its annual needs of 350 million cubic metres solely from Russia through Ukraine, Hungary and Serbia.

Last week it clinched a deal with German utility E.ON Ruhrgas (EONGn.DE) on gas deliveries until Russian gas begins to flow. (Reporting by Maja Zuvela; Editing by Adam Tanner and Jon Loades-Carter)



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