THE future of the Portland Aluminium smelter is safely in managing part-owner Alcoa’s hands for the foreseeable future, as its departing plant manager says its long-term future would be assured by renewable energy developments planned for the region.

Former plant manager Ron Jorgensen told the Observer that Alcoa had called off negotiations with potential suitor, Dutch company Aloft, some weeks ago as it found the deal was not a good fit for the company.

While never confirmed by Alcoa, Aloft, formed by Australian Chris McNamee in 2021 to buy global aluminium assets, had been a potential suitor for some months.

Mr Jorgensen finished up at the smelter on Friday, September 30, and spoke to the Observer about his career in the industry as well as the prospects for Portland.

Perhaps the crucial part of his tenure as plant manager involved the negotiations for the last power deal, signed in 2021 for five years.

“We wrestled off the Americans (Alcoa head office) the ability to negotiate the power deal in Portland,” Mr Jorgensen said.

“The Americans were considering closure but we got a power deal for five years without any subsidies.

“We negotiated a deal with three different generators (Origin, AGL and Alinta) and that’s why it’s five years.

“We really wanted 10 but with so many stakeholders, some wanting five, some seven and some 10, to get agreement we got a five-year deal.”

That was coupled with federal government support that reflected the smelter’s role as a power bank for frequency modulation and power management that ensured it was compensated for playing a crucial part in taking the peaks out of power prices.

“That acknowledged and underwrote us if we got curtailed,” Mr Jorgensen said.

“That helped us because it was something we could put on the plan each year to keep our costs down. We moved from a plant losing money under the old power agreement to being a profitable business.

“I took advantage of that to put a business case to restart the idle capacity and we finally did that (in September).

“I wanted to make sure we delivered that before I left, that’s fantastic for Portland.

“It’s about economies of scale and helps pull our overall costs down to help us be a more sustainable business.

“We can compete globally. We don’t get to set the price, the market sets it internationally, so it’s really important to do whatever we can to bring our costs down and be a sustainable business.”

But the renewable energy future also had a huge role to play in the smelter’s future.

“We want to be part of the future, and aluminium is certainly part of the green economy,” Mr Jorgensen said.

“We believe that aluminium is going to be part of the continuation of the future for decarbonisation – you think about all those wind towers and solar farms, the electric vehicles of the future, an awful lot of aluminium goes into them.

“Our work is how we’re going to compete on the long-term stage in the future, especially since we’ve got the power deal and additional capacity.

“So many companies now will only use green energy-made products and we want to be part of that, as well as the recycling loop, in Australia there’s next to no aluminium recycling.

“We can look at value-adding that comes in the shape of scrap recycling then we can start alloying our metal where there’s a lot more upside in profit for very little work, instead of being just a primary aluminium producer.”

The key step was getting more renewable energy into the smelter.

“Now our big challenge is to go from being 32 per cent powered by renewables to we want to be the first smelter to be 100 per cent renewables,” Mr Jorgensen said.

“I’m really excited about offshore wind farms and if we can negotiate a good price I think we’re in a very good position to secure Portland’s future not for five years, but 15-20 years and more.”

Ironically the key to that lay in an asset which was often seen as a burden – the smelter’s switchyard.

“One time our switchyard was a noose around our neck,” Mr Jorgensen said.

“Most smelters get their power over the fence at 33kV but we have step downs from 500kV.

“As much as it’s been an encumbrance for us to maintain that, it’s now an asset.

“It lets the renewables use it as a stepping stone to the (national) grid. It’s a bonus, not an encumbrance.”

Three prospective offshore wind farm projects are already in the early stages for Portland and Discovery Bays with one, Alinta-owned Spinifex, already slated to deliver all its power directly to the smelter and then any surplus on to the grid through the switchyard.

But not just offshore wind.

“There’s also solar to the north of us that will come down here and onshore wind – Kentbruck’s (Neoen Australia’s project slated for the forest between Mount Richmond and Nelson) still got a heartbeat as well, as well as hydrogen.

“There’s a lot of people that come to town, (renewable energy) investors, who say ‘wow, this is such a great place to do business’.

“It’s got lots and lots of advantages to bring power here, the enormous big switchyard (at the smelter) as an input to the 500kV lines from where the power could be exported anywhere.

“We’ve got keep looking forward and be ambassadors to make this stuff happen. We all want to move to green energy but we have to make some sacrifices as well.”

Jobs, jobs and even better jobs

The positivity from the power deal and the restart has led to a surge of jobs at the smelter, something Mr Jorgensen takes pride in, not for the numbers alone – at present there are 517 full-timers and 180 or so contractors, up from 468 and 125 before the latest power deal.

“I was quite deliberate when I came back from the US where I saw the work ethic of the Americans,” he said.

“Historically we employed people on skill but if you haven’t got the will and want to make a difference then nothing changes.

“I said I’d rather employ people on will and I’m really excited about the great people that have come to join us in the last 18 months, from all sorts of backgrounds.

“Forestry, hardware stores, small businesses, chemist shops, they’re just some of them.

“For me it’s really good to get that breadth of people and those people with will that want to make a difference.

“We’re (Australia) an expensive place to do business and to get that (high income) you’ve got to work for it, build those jobs and continue to keep our community alive.

“If we can pull off these offshore wind farms as well again that’s another boost for employment, it’s not just short-term employment either but they’re going to have to be serviced.

“What I’m really excited about as well is we’re now seeing second and third generation employees. I like that we’re keeping the lifeblood in our town.

“I’m disappointed when we get kids that go off to university and never come home and it’s up to us to create those opportunities for our smelter.

“We’ve got so many diverse jobs out there (from accountants to pot room operators to human resources), we need places like the smelter so we can get kids to come home.

“Hopefully I’ve left that legacy for the future.”

There are some other outstanding matters.

“Our real challenge is we have to lock in a power deal,” Mr Jorgensen said.

“If we can do that, there’s nothing stopping Portland.

“We’ve got a number of projects that have been in the can for way too long but we’ve got to get those things happening.”

Alcoa is the managing part-owner of the smelter, along with Alumina Ltd, Marubeni (Japan) and CITIC (China) – the latter two holding 45 per cent between them.

“They are fantastic partners,” Mr Jorgensen said.

“They are supportive, willing, just really good and they want this plant to succeed.”

From apprentice to boss

While Alcoa looks for a new plant manager, Mark Crespan, who has been at the smelter for 34 years, will act in the role.

For Mr Jorgensen it is the end of a 36-year career in the aluminium smelting industry, which began with “fairly humble beginnings” as an apprentice fitter and turner in the former Pt Henry smelter operated by Alcoa near Geelong – he was runner-up in the state apprentice of the year title while there – before he went to night school for 10 years to further himself.

He’s grateful to an industry that allowed him such opportunities.

“I’ve never ever felt that I’m driven but everyone else says I am,” he said.

After 18 years at Pt Henry he was headhunted by Rio Tinto for its Boyne Island smelter near Gladstone in Queensland.

“I started a superintendent and within six months was manager,” he said.

Four years later he was headhunted back by his former plant manager at Geelong, John Osborne, who was now filling the same role in Portland.

“I thought ‘no, not really’, we had two kids at uni at Geelong at Deakin but (wife Debbie) said she’d like to come home to be closer to the kids so we did that,” Mr Jorgensen said.

“John did a restructure after 18 months and I was managing the cast house, pot rooms and switchyard, and did that for eight years.”

That included the power outage in 2016 that brought the smelter to its knees, and had many fearing for its future – though those fears did not reckon with the determination of the Portland Aluminium staff.

“I led the restart for line one to get it up and running again,” Mr Jorgensen said.

“For my services Alcoa said ‘how about we send you to America’.”

So in 2017 he and Debbie were off to the Intalco smelter in the state of Washington, north of Seattle and close to the Canadian border.

“It was a plant about to close and at the last minute they got a power deal so we got it up and going,” Mr Jorgensen said.

Despite the successful stint personal reasons saw the couple wanting to head home again.

“I talked to Alcoa and they said ‘would you be interested in taking up the role of plant manager at Portland’, so I did.”

That was in late 2019 and about three years later, Mr Jorgensen bows out on a satisfied note.

But while he and Debbie are now enjoying retired life on a 32-acre (13ha) farm near Geelong, running a few beef cattle and spending time with their grandchildren, there is still one tie to Portland.

That’s in the form of the Portland Kyokushin Karate Club – which the couple founded in 2010 – it then operated out of the St Stephen’s Anglican Church hall, but moved into the purpose-fitted dojo across the road in Percy St two years later.

They also own the building.

“I’ve deliberately not let go and that’s my reason to keep coming back to Portland,” Mr Jorgensen said.

“It gives me a reason to come back and be part of the community.”