The Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) has lost more than a quarter of its already limited operating capacity since June this year, the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation (GIADEC) has confirmed, intensifying the urgency behind Cabinet’s push to bring in a strategic equity investor.

The smelter began 2026 with an ambitious plan to ramp up from its severely constrained base to two full production lines, steadily raising its operating cell count between January and June.

But a wave of equipment breakdowns, driven by ageing, obsolete machinery, wiped out a significant share of that progress within two months.

The result has been a sharp fall in both the volume and quality of metal produced, with monthly output roughly halving and the purity of aluminium coming off the line dropping well below the industry-standard grade.

The company is now struggling to meet supply commitments to its customers.

Restoring the lost production capacity alone will require several million dollars in the near term, while a far larger capital injection, running into hundreds of millions of dollars, would be needed to lift the reliability of VALCO’s equipment to an internationally competitive standard and fully modernise the plant.

At the heart of the problem is VALCO’s technology itself. The smelter runs equipment nearing 60 years old, which consumes significantly more energy per tonne of aluminium produced than modern smelters, a critical vulnerability at a time of high energy costs.

Legacy debts

VALCO also remains heavily indebted, owing legacy debts to its power suppliers.

The company owes a legacy debt of roughly $400 million, the bulk of it to its power suppliers, the Volta River Authority (VRA) and the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo), which together account for an estimated $200 million to $300 million of the total.

A further $15 million is owed to suppliers of raw materials such as petroleum coke, alumina and fluorides, with about $1 million more owed to local suppliers.

Officials say this debt cannot realistically be settled through VALCO’s own operations, given the company’s current financial state, and that a return to profitability, driven by fresh capital and modern technology, is the only viable path to clearing it.

Compounding the picture, current capital requirements identified for turning the company around run well into hundreds of millions of dollars: an estimated $351 million to optimise and run two full production lines, and a further $239 million to upgrade cell technology on three currently idle lines, alongside tens of millions more for carbon, cell-line and cast-house equipment upgrades.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The debt cannot realistically be settled unless the company returns to profitability, officials say, something they argue is unlikely without external capital and technical expertise.

Confirmation

The Chief Executive Officer of GIADEC, Executive Officer of the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation (GIADEC), Reindorf Twumasi Ankrah, who confirmed the figures when they were put to him, said government has repeatedly warned that failure to secure an investor could result in the smelter shutting down entirely, a scenario officials say would threaten Ghana’s broader ambitions for an Integrated Aluminium Industry and put VALCO workers’ jobs directly at risk.

He maintained that the deal under discussion remains a capital injection in exchange for equity, not a sale of the company, and that Cabinet’s approval given in June was strictly to authorise the start of negotiations.

He reiterated that Cabinet had directed that no VALCO employee should lose their job as part of the negotiated package.

GIADEC emphasised that the figures underscore the urgency of its push to bring in a strategic equity investor, a plan that has drawn protest from VALCO workers and the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU-Ghana) over fears of privatisation.