Eurallumina. Multinational companies, joint ventures and public policies surrounding a major industrial investment in the Mediterranean 1968–2009[Eurallumina. Entreprises multinationales, joint-ventures et politiques publiques autour d’un grand investissement industriel en Méditerranée 1968-2009]

This research explores the history of Eurallumina, a large alumina refinery that was started in Sardinia, Italy, at the beginnings of the 1970s. This investment was the outcome of a long inception, during which the Italian government conceived it as part of a large integrated aluminium site, but which laterly resulted in a disproportionate large alumina smelter with only a poor integration with the aluminium smelting facilities. During its launching, this unity was progressively taken over by aluminium majors, which used this investment in their respective downward integration. This article discusses the implications from a commodity value chain perspective (the investments of multinationals made Eurallumina less effective in the developmental policies of the Italian state to expand national aluminium production) and from an environmental standpoint (alumina refining generated concerns in the red mud disposals). After the energy shocks and the progressive dislocation of aluminium production in Europe, multinationals progressively divested from this unit and Eurallumina resulted to be a large unit without upstream and downstream integrations: its survive in the 1980s and 1990s was assured only by a large state aid that, until privatisatons in the late 1990s, saved the production without any strategic vision about the national aluminium production.