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Basic process is:

1. Mining

2. Refine the ore to alumina (Al2O3)

3. Smelting to break the oxygen bond and turn alumina into pure aluminium

4. Processing of aluminium to other products - alloys, rolled sheet, powder, etc.

My previous process relates to step 3 only which, in the Australian context, is carried out at 4 plants one each in Qld, NSW, Vic and Tas.

Step 2, alumina, is carried out at various facilities in Qld and WA.

Step 1, mining, in Qld, NT, WA and on a small scale in Tas.

Regarding smelting, step 3, the key practical and economic attribute of it is the need for truly incredible amounts of electricity. If you don't have that then you're stuffed both economically and practically.

For the alumina refining stage, step 2, what's needed is heat so that means fuel. Usually but not always the fuel of choice is natural gas.

From an economic perspective aluminium smelters and alumina refineries thus tend to be located where they can obtain cheap and reliable electricity (smelters) and fuel (alumina refineries). The benefits of that outweigh the cost of shipping things around assuming it's a reasonably accessible location.

From an investment perspective I'm not advocating for or against. I wouldn't avoid the sector due to the risk of energy disruption to a smelter however provided that the company in question isn't hugely exposed to any one facility. For example Rio Tinto's business is very much larger than any of their aluminium smelters, an incident there wouldn't kill the company. Obviously very different if we're talking about some company whose entire business is a single aluminium smelter and there's only one transmission line feeding it (which would be shockingly bad engineering but someone somewhere may well have done it).