PCC silicon smelter at Bakki no better than United Silicon’s smelter at Helguvik

The Icelandic media have gradually woken up to the fact that the silicon smelter  operated by PCC at Bakki in North Iceland is little better than Iceland’s first silicon smelter at Helguvik, owned by United Silicon, which was closed down by the Environment Agency on September 1 last year after about nine months of operation. Initially, the lack of media attention indicated that everything was going to plan, when in fact this was not the case at all.

Besides having to switch the first furnace at Bakki on and off a number of times, with accompanying odour problems, when it was finally brought into operation after a delay of over four months, there was a fire at Bakki in July and ongoing problems with the start-up of the second furnace. Bogi, which apparently still hasn’t become fully functional (United Silicon were never allowed to start up a second furnace because of the problems with the first one).

Then last month there was an accident to one of the workers, when he was using a “gun” to open part of the furnace and the bullet rebound to hit him on his arm.

The trade union for the plant’s workers, Framsýn, say that staff turnover has been rapid and that many of the new workers come from Estonia. Workers are discontented and relations between management and ordinary workers are strained – probably not helped by the accident.

In mid-September the smelter’s first managing director, Hafsteinn Viktorsson, was replaced by Jokull Gunnarsson, who had previously been in charge of the plant’s production process. The media have complained that it is nigh impossible to contact Gunnarsson.

The company make light of all their problems, glossing over them with words such as “There are many things to think about when starting up a furnace…” “and “Such events can occur…”.

Just as I thought that the ongoing problems at Bakki must make it unlikely that a buyer would be found for the Helguvik smelter, it was reported that many investors had shown interest in buying the Helguvik plant. PCC still don’t have any news in English on their website or their Facebook page, so I don’t know how much the prospective buyers of the Helguvik plant know about the problems encountered by PCC with its “best available technology”.

One item of interest concerning the Helguvik plant is that Stakksberg – the company set up by Arion Bank to sell the smelter – has been working with the local Reykjanesbaer council to change the district land-use plans because two of the smelter’s buildings are too high. One would have expected that the smelter’s buildings would have been adapted to the plans….

Update, 23 October: They STILL haven’t managed to get the second furnace to work.

Update, 10 November: They seem to have got Boga working again.