And so, that’s all stuff that needs to be designed and figured out on how we’re going to be able to address that. But that’s what leads me to my very positive view on the medium- to long-term in our industry.Lucas Pipes I really appreciate that color. And as a second question, switching topics, I appreciated the update on — and reminder on the San Ciprián restart plans on the smelter side. And I just wondered is there kind of a minimum utilization that we should think of for 2024? Thank you very much for your color on that.Roy Harvey Yes. What we’ve tried to do is match the progress of the restart with the new contracts that we’ve signed, the new energy capacity coming on line. And because it takes time to actually permit and then construct those new wind farms, it means a lot of that capacity is going to be pointed more towards 2025 rather than 2024.
So, we have a commitment to get started in 2024 by January 1st. It’s — and if I remember, it’s 5% of the total output. So it’s a relatively small piece of it. That gets us started. If we get new wind capacity coming in, we can start to ramp that up because it’s very low-priced energy, and we’d be glad to be smelting aluminum at those levels. But really, we need to be up and fully operational by October of 2025. That’s a firm commitment that we have on our end. I think it matches what we’ve been able to build on the energy side. And to be quite honest, we’re putting a lot of effort into making the San Ciprián smelter a competitive smelter for the long term.Operator The next question comes from Timna Tanners with Wolfe Research.
Please go ahead.Timna Tanners I wanted to kick off, if I could, talking about the guidance on the — unchanged guidance on shipments for aluminum and alumina. We just thought it was a little surprising given some of the disruptions. So, I just want to make sure I understood. It seems like perhaps at Alumar was brief and doesn’t matter. Maybe the other refinery is a small impact, but I just want to make sure I understood fully that maybe they were smaller, or maybe you’re expecting some improvement as the year progresses to keep volumes the same.Molly Beerman Hi, Timna, I’ll take this one. So in regard to the alumina guidance, we had a good outlook on the WA bauxite situation. So that was built into the guidance for the year. The Alumar refinery, the interruption is like we do expect to catch up and be on target for the year.
And in aluminum, we’re still tracking well to the guidance.Timna Tanners Okay. Great. I have so many more questions…Molly Beerman I should have added that we haven’t made decisions yet on the Portland restart. So again, not a huge volume there, we’re 25% down, but that’s one provision on the aluminum.Timna Tanners Got you. And that’s somewhat small. So I can see how that might not move the needle. Okay. I guess I wanted to ask, if I could sneak in, on the bauxite situation, I just want to clarify, you’re expecting the extended unfavorable mining circumstances to continue through the first quarter. But what’s embedded in your assumptions? Is it that you’ll expect to be able to move to your expected mine plan beyond that? And what’s baked in there?
And then, if I could sneak in another one on the energy exposure side, getting a lot of questions about benefits to lower prices, but I believe you’re pretty well secured for the year. So just sneaking that one in as well, if you could comment on how much exposure you might have through the end of the year to power prices. Thanks.Roy Harvey Let me answer Western Australia and then I’ll let Molly answer the energy question. I think the key here in Western Australia is that we’re still in the midst of discussions with our — with the Western Australian government. And so, we’re not yet at an endpoint. As I said in my comments, I’m confident that we are working collaboratively to reach that solution. What we’ve built into that assumption around going into first quarter of 2024 is that it typically takes 9 to 12 months to develop the plan and then to deploy on the plan to be able to change to — essentially to be able to change to new mining areas.
And so, that sort of helps you build your understanding of when we think we’re going to be moving our way to that permitting process and then how long it takes us to be able to adapt and have the surety of where we’re going to be mining and when we’re going to be mining. It takes about one quarter to do the detailed planning to move from one grade to the next.So the quicker that we can finalize the discussions that we’re having in the Western Australian government, the quicker we can be very clear about the extra measures that we need to take and what bauxite areas that we will be moving to next. And that — like I said, it’s an ongoing discussion with the government. The quicker we can get that done, the quicker we’ll have surety of where we’ll be amount of ore that we’ll have available and how much effort and infrastructure it takes to be able to reach that or — and then we can start counting backwards on when we can do that one quarter away from changing the bauxite grade.So I realize that’s a lot of sort of calculations that sit inside of that.
But as we look at it today, we think 1Q 2024 is our best estimate for when we can see the last of those impacts, but we’ll keep you updated as we progress. And Molly, I’ll turn it over to you for energy.Molly Beerman Yes. Timna, on your energy exposure question, you’re right. We do have everything secured now, except one small piece in Norway. I do want to call out the list of smelter in Norway. We had highlighted a couple of quarters ago, back in the third quarter of ‘22 that site actually lost $45 million for the quarter. And we’re pleased to say that that is now running at near breakeven. And with further premium improvements, we could get some more profitability out of that site. So, a great turnaround for Lista where we’ve secured the power through the end of the year.Operator The next question comes from John Tumazos with Tumazos Very Independent Research.
