Our first internal discussions about “the Aughinish project” took place late last year. Information had emerged that cast new light on the activities of Aughinish Alumina, a Limerick metals refinery that has found itself at the centre of geopolitical tensions between Russia and the West since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014. The largest alumina plant in the European Union, the sprawling Aughinish plant has been under Russian ownership since 2006, when it was bought by Rusal – a firm controlled at the time by Oleg Deripaska, a close associate of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Aughinish employs hundreds of people – and sustains many more jobs in the region indirectly – and its importance to the local economy explains why Irish governments have gone to extraordinary lengths to protect the company. They have lavished it with tax breaks and eased environmental restrictions the firm found too onerous. For 12 years, successive governments have fought a successful international lobbying campaign on behalf of Aughinish, seeking to keep it off EU and US sanctions lists drawn up in response to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Irish ministers have always maintained that, despite being owned by a Russian company that ships large amounts of alumina to that country, Aughinish does not supply Moscow’s war effort. The plant is “not connected to any sort of a war machine”, said Patrick O’Donovan, Limerick TD and Minister for Culture, in April 2022.
But through a deep trawl of confidential documents, customs data and transport records, along with satellite imagery and financial records, our investigation – carried out with our partners at the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) – unearthed intriguing new information about exactly where Aughinish’s alumina goes.
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In Conor Gallagher’s extraordinary story, published this week, we were able to track the bauxite ore from mines in Brazil and west Africa to Limerick, where it is refined into alumina. Vast amounts of that alumina are shipped to Russia, we revealed, where it is smelted and then sold onto a Moscow-based trading company which in turn supplies Russia’s military industry. The aluminium is bought by dozens of arms companies that make weapons for Russia’s war in Ukraine, including tanks, cruise missiles and bombers. Exports of alumina from Ireland to Russia have surged in recent years, official figures show, despite the fact that Russia’s civilian economy has stagnated.
Alumina in not sanctioned by the EU. Aughinish says the alumina it produces is a basic commodity that is “vital for countless civilian industries”.
It’s a complex story, and to do it justice, we realised early on that we would need to tell it visually, showing the entire supply chain from South America and Africa through Limerick to Siberia. The result was our most ambitious piece of visual storytelling to date – an immersive scrolling tool produced by journalists in our Digital Development Team and talented designers and developers in our Technology Department. That part alone took two months to complete. Meanwhile, Conor was working with his sources and with the OCCRP to interrogate the material, develop the story and corroborate our information. As we wrestled with how to illustrate the narrative and to convey a sense of the scale of the Limerick plant, visual journalist Alan Betson travelled to the site and used a drone to capture what Conor’s opening line describes as the “hulking behemoth” 40 minutes outside Limerick city. The result is the looping video you see at the top of the package.
As with any significant story these days, by 6am on Tuesday people could read, watch or listen to it – whichever format suited them best. In print, it was the lead story and a double-page spread inside.
The Aughinish project was the first to be routed through our new Investigations Unit, a structure that strengthens our capacity to land high-impact public-interest stories. A total of 16 people – writers, editors, designers, developers, visual journalists, podcasters and lawyers – were involved in getting the story over the line.
It doesn’t end there, of course. We had a number of follow-ups over recent days, including reports on the political fallout – the Government has promised a review to examine the implications of our revelations – and local community reaction from Limerick.
On Saturday, in what is our most-read story this weekend, Conor reported that a vessel that regularly transports cargo from Aughinish to Russia was observed dropping its anchor near critical subsea cables off the Irish west coast last year after collecting a shipment from the plant. A month later it was boarded by German police and found to be missing its anchor and most of its anchor cable. The ship’s owner denies any wrongdoing.
Keep an eye out for future work by our investigations team. If you have a confidential news tip to share with us, this page explains how you can get in touch.
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