THE largest alumina refinery in Europe, RUSAL Aughinish, which is located on the Shannon Estuary, plunged into the red last year as it racked up pre-tax losses of $10.4m (7.68m Euros).

The business recorded the loss as revenues at the refinery dipped by $24m, or 2.5pc, from $610.57m to $586m in the 12 months to the end of December last (2012). The principal activity of the company is production and sale of alumina and separate figures provided by Aughinish Alumina to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirm output at the refinery was 1.924 million tonnes of alumina hydrate last year – a small increase over 2011 production levels.

The plant extracts alumina from bauxite with around 70pc of the bauxite processed at the refinery coming from Guinea in Africa and the remainder coming from Brazil. The finished product, alumina, is exported for further processing through smelting to aluminium metal.

The pre-tax loss recorded last year follows pre-tax profits of $4.9m in 2011 – a swing of $15.3m. At the end of December, the company had accumulated profits of $207.1m.

The Aughinish Alumina refinery has been valued at $1.2bn by its Russian parent United Company Rusal.

Last year, the Rusal group recorded worldwide revenues of $10.8bn.