SURALCO ALUMINA EXPORTS DROPPED 75 PCT IN FEB

  The Surinam Aluminum Company
  (SURALCO) registered a 75 pct drop in alumina exports in
  February after its operations were shut down by worker violence
  and guerrilla sabotage, the official Surinam News Agency, SNA,
  reported.
      SNA said Suralco's alumina exports dropped to 23,869 tonnes
  in February from 92,852 tonnes in January. Aluminum exports,
  meanwhile, decreased nine pct in the same period, to 1,511
  tonnes from 1,647 tonnes.
      Suralco's alumina refinery at Paranam, 18 miles south of
  the capital, was shut down February 2 after workers destroyed
  plant and computer equipment in a protest over layoffs at the
  company's nearby aluminum smelter.
      The smelter was shut down January 26 after anti-government
  guerrillas dynamited two electricity towers which transmit
  power to the plant from the Afobaka dam.
      The alumina refinery, owned jointly by Suralco and Billiton
  NV, a Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary, was reopened March 9. But
  the smelter remains closed, as do the Suralco mines at Moengo,
  60 miles east of Paramaribo, which were closed down by
  guerrillas last November.
  

