Good news for investors & the environment: Alcoa

The aluminium producer’s revenues reached $4.6 billion, up from $4.2 billion in the second quarter – although still substantially lower than the $7 billion in revenues in the third quarter of 2008.

Revenues were helped by an increase in realised prices for primary aluminium to $1,972 per tonne from $1,667 per tonne in the second quarter, as well as stabilisation in end markets.

Alcoa said global aluminium consumption was expected to rise 11 per cent across the second half of 2009.

“The financial and operational measures we took in the first half of the year are having a strong positive impact on our cash position and profitability,” said Klaus Kleinfeld, Alcoa president and chief executive officer. “Despite unfavourable currency and energy headwinds, our performance this quarter indicates that Alcoa is weathering the economic storm and is in excellent shape to benefit when the market recovers.”

The company reported that it is exceeding the targets of its “Cash Sustainability Program”, which helped to offset negative currency and energy impacts in the quarter of $89 million. Savings totalled $375 million, 188 percent of the full year target for 2009.

Capital expenditures in the quarter were $370 million, on-target to reach the 2009 goal of a nearly 50 percent reduction from 2008.

It’s not only Alcoa’s cash sustainability that is being reported on, it has again topped its sector in the Covalence reputation index for the September Quarter.

Sector leader in the “Basic Resources” category Alcoa was named as the most ethical organisation according to Covalence’s quotation system which is classified according to 45 criteria such as labour standards, waste management, product social utility or human rights policy. It is considered one of the global barometers of how multinationals are perceived in the ethical field.

The system integrates thousands of documents found among media, enterprise, NGO and other sources, for producing the EthicalQuote score which serves as a base for calculating Covalence rankings. This score reflects the historical evolution of multinational companies’ ethical reputation.

In the Q3 2009 report, IBM (Technology), Intel Corp (Technology) and HSBC Holdings (Banks) topped the rankings among 541 multinationals within 18 sectors.

Some other companies listed in the top ten of the “Basic Resources” sector included Rio Tinto, Xstrata, Anglo American, Nippon Steel and Gold Fields Ltd. BHP Billiton was ranked 18^th and Vale was ranked 15^th.