Imco shuts its Sikeston secondary aluminum plant

NEW YORK - Imco Recycling, the worlds top aluminum and zinc recycler, said it was permanently shutting down its Sikeston, Missouri, secondary aluminum plant and redirecting output to its other more efficient scrap processing plants. Roughly 30 employees will lose their jobs at the recycling plant, which had been in declining activity for months, Paul V. Dufour, chief financial officer at Imco, told Reuters. "Through technology improvements and our productivity enhancements at other facilities, we have adequate capacity to process those materials at other facilities on a more profitable basis," he said. "We expect to retain a majority of that business." Dufour characterised the Sikeston plant as "very small," citing annual capacity of 60 million to 70 million lbs. Actual production had fallen short of capacity in recent years, but the latest output figures were not immediately available, according to Dufour. "Output there has been declining," he added. IMCOs total annual processing capacity in 1999 was just over 3 billion lbs. Imco actually processed 2.833 billion lbs of aluminum. Imco also processes magnesium in addition to aluminum and zinc. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE