Business
Century Aluminum Company is a Delaware corporation with our principal executive offices located at 2511 Garden Road, Building A, Suite 200, Monterey, California 93940.
Throughout this Form 10-K, and unless expressly stated otherwise or as the context otherwise requires, "Century Aluminum Company," "Century Aluminum," "Century," the “Company,” "we," "us," and "our" refer to Century Aluminum Company and its subsidiaries.
Available Information
Additional information about Century may be obtained from our website, which is located at www.centuryaluminum.com. Our website provides access to filings we have made through the EDGAR filing system of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), including our annual, quarterly and current reports filed on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K, respectively, our code of ethics that applies to all employees and ownership reports filed on Forms 3, 4 and 5 after December 16, 2002 by our directors, executive officers and beneficial owners of more than 5% of our outstanding common stock. These filings are also available on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. In addition, we will make available free of charge copies of our Forms 10-K, Forms 10-Q, and Forms 8-K upon request. A copy of the code of ethics is available on our website. Requests for these documents can be made by contacting our Investor Relations Department by mail at: 2511 Garden Road, Building A, Suite 200, Monterey, CA 93940, or by phone at: (831) 642-9300. Information contained in our website is not incorporated by reference in, and should not be considered a part of, this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This annual report includes forward-looking statements, which are subject to the “safe harbor” created by section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. We may make forward-looking statements in our SEC filings, press releases, news articles, earnings presentations and when we are speaking on behalf of the Company. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the fact that they do not strictly relate to historical or current facts. Often, they include the words “believe,” “expect,” “target,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “plan,” “seek,” “estimate,” “potential,” “project,” or words of similar meaning, or future or conditional verbs such as “will,” “would,” “should,” “could,” “might,” or “may.”
Forward-looking statements in this annual report, for example, include statements about the following subjects, among other things:
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Our business objectives, strategies and initiatives, the growth of our business and our competitive position and prospects;
Our assessment of significant economic, financial, political and other factors and developments that may affect our results, including currency risks;
Our assessment of the aluminum market, aluminum prices, aluminum financing, inventories and warehousing arrangements and other similar matters;
Aluminum prices and their effect on our financial position and results of operations;
Future construction investment and development of our facility in Helguvik, Iceland, including our discussions and arbitration regarding power purchase agreements, future capital expenditures, the costs of completion or cancellation, production capacity and the sources of funding for the facility;
Our hedging and other strategies to mitigate risk and their potential effects;
Estimates relating to the costs and time necessary to restore our facility in Hawesville, KY to full stable operations following the restart of its previously curtailed potline;
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Our curtailed operations, including the potential restart of curtailed operations, and potential curtailment of other domestic assets;
Our procurement of electricity, alumina, carbon products and other raw materials and our assessment of pricing and other terms relating thereto;
Estimates of our pension and other postemployment liabilities and future payments, deferred income tax assets and property plant and equipment impairment, environmental liabilities and other contingent liabilities and contractual commitments;
Changes in, or the elimination of, the retiree medical benefit plans and programs of certain of our subsidiaries and their effect on our financial position and results of operation;
Critical accounting policies and estimates, the impact or anticipated impact of recent accounting pronouncements or changes in accounting principle;
Our anticipated tax liabilities, benefits or refunds;
Negotiations with our unionized workforce;
Our assessment of the ultimate outcome of outstanding litigation and environmental matters and liabilities relating thereto;
Compliance with laws and regulations and the effect of future laws and regulations;
The costs and effects and our evaluation of and strategies with respect to legal and regulatory actions, investigations and similar matters;
Discussions with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation regarding our Ravenswood facility;
Our capital resources, projected financing sources and projected uses of capital; and
Our debt levels and intentions to incur or repay debt in the future.
We believe the expectations reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, based on information available to us on the date of this annual report. However, all forward-looking statements are subject to many risks and uncertainties, including those described under Item 1A, “Risk Factors,” and we cannot guarantee our future performance or results of operations, and you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Although we undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law, you are advised to consult any additional disclosures we make in our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, annual report on Form 10-K and current reports on Form 8-K filed with the SEC. See Item 1, “Business - Available Information.”
Overview
We produce primary aluminum. Aluminum is an internationally traded commodity, and its price is effectively determined on the London Metal Exchange (the “LME”). Our primary aluminum facilities produce standard grade and value-added primary aluminum products. Our current primary aluminum rated production capacity is 785,000 metric tons per year (“mtpy”), of which approximately 170,000 mtpy remained curtailed as of December 31, 2011. We restarted approximately 49,000 mtpy of curtailed capacity at our Hawesville facility during 2011. We produced approximately 602,000 metric tons of primary aluminum in 2011.