CYNTHIA'S METAL

SHE enjoys the view from the end of the jetty and is looking forward to playing golf someday. But Cynthia Carroll has had other things on her mind since she arrived to become managing director of Aughinish Alumina in January.

Just over six weeks after she arrived she was presenting her company's case for cheaper energy to an Oireachtas committee. Aughinish Alumina is the State's biggest electricity user, with an ESB bill of around £10 million annually. Energy is one of the cost factors that Ms Carroll will be trying to cut in order to lower the production costs per tonne of alumina extracted in the plant.

"We are in discussions with the ESB and are looking forward to further discussions," she says. Aughinish has had a number of companies approach it to discuss alternative energy sources. "But we're not in a position to make the level of investment that would be required."

Ms Carroll is an American who has worked for the Limerick company's Canadian parent company Alcan for almost eight years. Her arrival on Aughinish island in the Shannon Estuary comes less than a year after Alcan bought out the last remaining partner in the troubled venture.

Two of the three original partners have withdrawn from the £650 million plant leaving Alcan to shoulder the burden of making the plant profitable. Originally Alcan, one of the two major players in the global aluminium market, owned 40 per cent of Aughinish. The balance was held by US giant Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) and Billiton, a subsidiary of Dutch Shell. ARCO sold out to Alcan shortly after the company was set up.

In March 1995 Alcan purchased Billiton's 35 per cent, turning Aughinish into what Ms Carroll calls a "cost centre" for the Alcan corporation. In the same month Alcan sold its Dublin based Alcan Metal Centre, one of 12 subsidiaries sold as a package by the group for around £200 million.

As a link in the Alcan chain Aughinish does not publish its own results. It operates as a processing department selling to Alcan's customers in Norway, Britain and Russia.

While energy costs are a crucial concern, environmental worries provide another potential problem. The plant is among a number of industries blamed for local animal health problems on farms around Askeaton. An investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was started last year. In its recent interim report the EPA said there was no evidence of a link between industrial emissions and the unexplained cattle deaths.

The conclusions of the EPA investigation are not expected for up to two years. Meanwhile Aughinish's application for an environmental licence from the EPA is stalled, awaiting further detailed information from the company. It applied last summer and the EPA requested more information in December. The EPA will take two months to decide on the licence once the full application is received.

The plant processes alumina from bauxite, a red/brown earth, which is shipped from Guinea in West Africa. The main byproduct is a red mud which is stacked in an expanding pool on the site. There is no economic use for the red mud.

Ms Carroll says the plant is very environmentally conscious. The policy of its parent company is to operate "in harmony with the environment". The company has always been PR conscious, employing former RTE journalist Cathal O'Shannon when it was first set up. The current PR manager, Pat Lynch says any interested group is welcome to a tour of the plant.

Ms Carroll has been well briefed on the concerns of locals. "We have neighbours' meetings. We're trying to keep people informed as to what we're doing, to address any questions that they may have." But she is aware that Aughinish is being blamed.

"You see a big operation like this on the skyline and you think 'what in the world are they up to?' when you see the steam coming out. So we're trying to do things to educate people in what we do and who we are."

Financially the plant has suffered from the global recession in the aluminium market. But Ms Carroll says the outlook is improving. Both ARCO and Billiton took significant losses on the plant. But it is now at a break even point, making a marginal profit, according to Ms Carroll.

Ms Carroll is not the first executive despatched to Limerick from Montreal with the aim of cutting costs. In the 1980s one of those chief executives, Robert Fox, admitted the plant had lost £200 million in its first three years and it had narrowly avoided closing down.

At the time Aughinish was producing alumina (the raw material for aluminium) at a cost of $200 a tonne (£127) for a market that was paying around $120 a tonne. Mr Fox took out a layer of management and negotiated a VVBU (very, very big user) discount with the ESB. Now Aughinish is facing the first wave of ESB price rises in 10 years.

Ms Carroll says Aughinish's costs are "on the higher end on a dollars per tonne basis" in the alumina market although she will not give specific figures. "I think we have a very positive, bright future . . . as long as we can continue to improve the operation. "

The Aughinish plant accounts for around a quarter of Alcan's total alumina production, shipping more than 1.25 million tonnes a year. With an annual turnover of $9.3 billion Alcan has five other alumina plants like Aughinish worldwide and a technical agreement with a Spanish plant.

The latest addition to the stable is a new plant in Brazil. The figures stack up better there. "Clearly if you're sitting next to your bauxite resources or your customers that's an advantage." Brazil has the raw material hydropower and a growing market.

Aughinish employs 450 people, from an original workforce of around 700 Contractors account for a further 100 to 150 jobs. The plant contributes almost £53 million into the Irish economy according to Ms Carroll.

Ms Carroll has had a series of meetings with workers and says she is very impressed with their commitment to their jobs. Job losses will not be among her costcutting measures, she says, as it would be difficult to operate on a leaner workforce.

Ms Carroll (39) was raised in Princeton, New Jersey. Her mother was a director of counselling at a local college and her father was "in the investment business". She is married to David Carroll, an accountant, who is currently looking for a job in Ireland. They are living in the Limerick area and have two daughters, Britta (2) and Carin (8 months).

She says she is very glad to be in Ireland and has not put a timeframe on her stay. It will be a matter of years rather than months.

She has a Batchelors and Masters degree in Geology and she worked for oil company Amoco overseeing operations on oil wells from Wyoming to Alaska. She completed an MBA in Harvard and her last job with Alcan was as head of a aluminium laminating subsidiary.

Being a woman in the macho world of primary production has not caused Ms Carroll any angst: "I've always been in a male dominated environment. I've always been in heavy industry, whether it's been in the oil industry or the aluminium industry. I don't spend a lot of time thinking or worrying about that kind of thing. If you attack your job then those sorts of concerns don't matter."