Hydro CEO says Qatar aluminium exports go as planned despite tensions

OSLO (Reuters) - Qatar's Qatalum aluminium plant is now exporting metals via ports in Kuwait and Oman, as well as a Qatari container port, following a diplomatic row with neighbours that had blocked shipments, Norsk Hydro told Reuters on Tuesday.

Hydro, which owns 50 percent of the plant, last week said new export routes had been established but declined at the time to say which countries it would go through.

"There's a recently completed container port in Qatar which we've begun using, and we also have shipments through Kuwait and Oman, solving this for the short term," Hydro Chief Executive Svein Richard Brandtzaeg said on the sidelines of a conference.

Hydro remains worried however by the regional tensions, Brandtzaeg said, after Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain on June 5 cut ties with Qatar.

The Qatalum plant produces more than 600,000 tonnes of primary aluminium per year.

(Reporting by Joachim Dagenborg, writing by Terje Solsvik, editing by Ole Petter Skonnord)