EU Parliament Votes to Block Irish Alumina Plant's Sales to Russia

The European Parliament has expressed its displeasure with an ongoing, militarily-relevant trade route between Ireland and Russia. The EU's largest alumina plant is in County Limerick, Ireland, and it ships the majority of its output to Russia. After years of controversy, the European Parliament has passed a non-binding motion requesting the European Commission to put a blanket ban on all sales of alumina to Russian buyers, which would shut down the route and undermine the plant's business.

The dust-up involves Aughinish Alumina, a Russian-owned plant on Ireland's western coast. In March, the investigative outlet OCCRP and the Irish Times published a detailed report on Aughinish's role in the Russian defense supply chain. The plant is the largest bauxite-to-alumina refinery in Europe, and is part of a vertically integrated supply chain for Russian metals conglomerate Rusal. OCCRP's data shows that most of its bauxite feedstock comes from Rusal-owned mines in Africa and South America, and more than half of the plant's alumina output goes to Rusal smelters in Russia, which turn the commodity into aluminum. Rusal then sells the aluminum to an intermediary that supplies Russan defense manufacturers - many of which are sanctioned by the EU. Given how these end products are used, OCCRP concludes that some of that aluminum ends up in Ukraine in the airframes and components of Russian weapons systems.

The EU bans imports of aluminum metal from Russia, but has no restrictions on exports of alumina to Russia. Though the sales may be controversial, Aughinish is fully compliant with all existing regulations, and the firm emphasized this in comments to OCCRP.

Four years into the war, the EC has not yet put sanctions on this niche EU trade with Russia, which is essentially coterminous with the Aughinish plant's export operations. The plant's managers have previously said that without exports to Russia, only a government buyout would prevent large-scale layoffs - something that Ireland has sought to avoid.

After OCCRP's coverage, the outlook may change. The European Parliament voted Wednesday to pass a resolution in support of sanctions to prohibit the sale of European alumina to Russia. The petition supports action by the European Commission which has the sole power to propose sanctions. Any single EU member state can block an EC-proposed sanctions measure.

Most Irish MEPs supported the resolution, despite the effects on the local economy in Limerick.

"It is highly likely alumina exported from Ireland is being used in the Russian military and that these exports have increased since 2022. It is also now clearer that the beneficial owner of the company is still a pro-Putin oligarch," MEP Barry Andrews told The Irish Times. "If this is confirmed, the Irish Government must urgently work with our EU partners to close off these exports."

Top image: Aughinish Alumina (Graham Horn / CC BY SA 2.0)