Mytilineos sees positive prospects for its alumina business in Greece despite surging alumina prices, the Greek industrial group said on Thursday.

Its vertically-integrated feed and lower production costs have shielded it and created “positive prospects” for its alumina business in the short and the medium term, the company said in a first-quarter trading update.

Prices for alumina surged last month after the United States imposed sanctions on Russian aluminium producer Rusal.

Alumina is extracted from bauxite ore and smelted to form aluminium. Its supply is already tightening due to a partial outage of a plant in Brazil.

Mytilineos operates an alumina refinery in central Greece with an annual output of 820,000 tonnes and aims to spend $400 million to boost its capacity to 1 million tonnes.