Walking into the job at one of most tumultuous times in recent history in the industry, Mr Mostogl said he didn't want to be the last at the 59-year-old smelter.

"I thought, geez I don't want to be the one who closes this place and that's what really drove me because I didn't want to be the general manager that was the last in the line," he said.

As one of the state's biggest industries contributing $690 million per annum to Gross State Product, the company had to cut its workforce by 20 per cent in two years, saving about $250 million.

It now employs 435 people directly and approximately 1500 indirectly and has contracts with 326 local businesses.

Bell Bay Aluminium, which is part of the Rio Tinto-owned Pacific Aluminium group of five smelters in Tasmania, Queensland, New South Wales and New Zealand, produced more than 189,000 tonnes of aluminium in 2013.

Mr Mostogl's appointment coincided with an unstable world economy as countries suffered under the global financial crisis and a high Australian dollar.

Around this time Bell Bay Aluminium was also named as one of Rio Tinto's smelters to be sold off.

The three big issues for the company now are the Renewable Energy Target, electricity prices and freight costs.

Renewable Energy Target

The RET is costing Bell Bay Aluminium $10 million a year, according to Mr Mostogl, and preventing that money being spent on the plant and in the state.

He said the RET was causing great concern for not only it but the renewable energy industry in the state.

"There is a fit there - you can have a renewable energy scheme and you need to apply the exemptions for the trade exposed businesses . . . we don't dictate the price we sell for, so the fact that we're being asked to pay that amount of RET on top of our operating cost, we can't claim that back from the people we sell to," he said.

Electricity prices

Using a quarter of the state's total electricity, which accounts for 30 to 40 per cent of their cost base, Mr Mostogl said the cost of power in Australia was very high.

"We're a price taker, so the price for aluminium is set in London and it doesn't matter where you are in the world, what it costs you to make, you can only sell it for that," he said.

He said the company would not be seeking any kind of exemption but wanted to see more efficiently run government business enterprises, with a dividend going to the government and lower prices to consumers - not just for large industrials but also the more vulnerable in the state.

Freight

Ninety per cent of the aluminium produced at Bell Bay leaves the state and of that, 80 per cent heads to south-east Asia, mainly China.

"On an international comparison, Tasmanian businesses need to have competitive shipping and if nothing else reminds or makes that point, the visit this week of the Chinese president and the TasInvest seminar - we can double our production from agriculture and all the different sectors but we still need to get the product off the island," Mr Mostogl said.

He said Bell Bay Aluminium did not support the Freight Equalisation Scheme or any kind of subsidy.

He said it was no use throwing money at a problem, you had to solve it to reduce the federal restrictions and make it internationally competitive.

Mr Mostogl admitted there were some very bleak times when they didn't know what they'd do but the company found efficiencies through redundancies, a pay freeze, buying lower grade alumina which was still able to produce a top quality end product and generally just becoming a much leaner, smarter operating outfit.

He said he learnt some smart ways to run the business and now actually passes those skills on to other businesses, government departments as well as other Rio Tinto operations.

Mr Mostogl's reforms at the smelter have seen him recognised nationally and next week he heads to Sydney to attend CEO Magazine's manufacturing executive of the year award as a national finalist.