An unpublished Government report on Aughinish Alumina has raised concerns that its Russian parent company may be engaged in illicit financial activity. The Irish Times has seen the unpublished report. The Department of Enterprise, which conducted the review, said Irish officials could not establish that alumina produced in the Co Limerick industrial plant was later being used to make Russian missiles and weapons. A copy of the department’s confidential report cites difficulty accessing information about companies operating in Russia as one obstacle in its investigation. Irish officials have “no means to physically trace the product sold from Aughinish within Russia”, it says. As part of the examination, officials looked at the complex network of companies used by the Russian metals giant Rusal to manage Aughinish in recent years. These include companies in Cyprus and the Middle East.The report states that Aughinish had no control over these companies, but that their set-up raises “concerns about financing and potential circumvention by the parent company”.[ Intriguing details but few answers in Government’s Aughinish Alumina report ]The report confirms that exports of alumina from Aughinish to Russia “have significantly increased since 2020 and at a more pronounced level since 2022”.The department was tasked with looking into an investigative article by The Irish Times, in co-operation with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), that drew on leaked documents to detail how Aughinish Alumina is shipping vast amounts of alumina to smelters in Russia. These smelters sell finished aluminium to a trading company called ASK, which supplies the alloy to Russian arms and missile manufacturers.The department’s unpublished report, completed in recent days, says officials attempted to identify ASK’s main Russian customers, but “there has been no reliable internal trade data available from Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022”.It says “despite the department’s best efforts”, it has not been possible to obtain the details of weapons companies buying from ASK.The department says it can not identify sufficient evidence to substantiate allegations the plant is supplying the Russian military, but says its assessment is “necessarily limited to the information currently available”.In a statement, Aughinish Alumina said it welcomed the outcome of the department’s review and was willing to take part in any work to enhance the traceability of its alumina.“As a supplier of a critical raw material to Europe and as a large regional employer, Aughinish will continue to co-operate with all Government departments,” the company said.The Shannon estuary refinery has been struggling to sell materials to some European countries in recent years “due to its ownership”, the report says.Swedish tax authorities recently said Rusal remains under the control of sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska. However, Swedish authorities had been constrained in sharing information with Irish officials, due to confidentiality requirements that covered criminal and tax cases, the report said. This is despite the Swedish judgment regarding Deripaska being a public document.Two weeks after The Irish Times published its investigative article, Aughinish Alumina provided the department with a “warranty” signed by Rusal chief executive Evgenii Nikitin, stating that alumina produced in Limerick was not used for military purposes but to make aluminium sold by Russia elsewhere, the report stated. Before this, assurances were issued verbally.Documentation about where alumina produced in Ireland ultimately ends up “cannot be verified or scrutinised satisfactorily”, though department officials note the information was provided “voluntarily and in good faith”.A copy of the report has been shared with the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, which will decide whether to propose targeting alumina in the next round of economic sanctions aimed at choking off Russia’s ability to wage its war on Ukraine.The economic “viability” of the company would be “at risk” in the event it was subject to EU-level sanctions, the Government’s report says.Representatives from the company met officials in the department’s offices on two occasions, in April and last month, as part of the investigation.