SPEciAL - ALU-WEB.DE

Norsk Hydro
aluminium smelting industry
emal’s plan to
boost capacity on schedule
Emirates Aluminium’s (Emal) single
aluminium smelter is on track for
construction, and has secured deals to
export the additional production globally.
Production from the first phase
of the USD5.7bn project will start by
the end of 2009 and will reach full
capacity of 700,000 tpy of aluminium
by December 2010. The second phase
will increase production capacity to
1.4 m tpy and will be complete in
2013/14.
The first phase of the project, located
at Al Taweelah in Abu Dhabi,
will use a capacity of more than 2,000
MW of electricity. The produced aluminium
will be sold in the domestic
market and exported to countries
within the region as well as to Europe
and Asia. The UAE’s local demand is
around 250,000 tpy of aluminium.
Once the company moves into the
operational phase, Saeed Al Mazooei
will become the new chief executive,
while Mr Hedditch will have an advisory
role.
rusal’s second attempt
for Hong Kong ipo
French bank BNP Paribas and Chinese
investment bank BOCI International
are among the bookrunners
chosen for the USD2bn Hong Kong
IPO planned by Russia’s UC Rusal.
ALUMINIUM · 12/2009
Both banks would join Credit Suisse
and Goldman Sachs as bookrunners
for the offering, recently revived by
the indebted Russian aluminium
producer. The Hong Kong listing
could raise between USD1.5bn and
USD2.5bn, though Rusal would likely
need approval from its many creditors
and Hong Kong regulatory authorities
in order to proceed.
Aluminium Corp. of China (Chinalco)
may buy a stake in Rusal when
the Russian aluminium producer lists
shares in Hong Kong, Moscow­based
newspaper Vedomosti reported. The
two companies have met to discuss
the possibility of Chinalco purchasing
some of the shares. Rusal’s IPO could
take place this December. A year ago,
the financial crisis forced the company
to abandon plans for a listing
on the London Stock Exchange, and
left it struggling to draw down more
than USD16bn of debt. Chinalco has
not made a final decision on buying a
stake in the Russian company, Vedomosti
said. However, Chinalco denied
this information.
noranda aluminum restarting
third potline at missouri smelter
Noranda Aluminum Holding Corp.
restarted a third potline at its New
Madrid/Missouri smelter in October.
The smelter lost 75% of its 261,000
tpy capacity in an ice storm in January
2009. It may take anywhere from
company news wordlwide
two to four months to get the entire
line back up and running. Each line
has 160 to 170 pots, and these have to
be rebuilt, then tested and electrified:
it is a fairly big process.
Then the smelter will be fed by increased
production at the company’s
Gramercy Alumina LLC and St. Ann
Bauxite Ltd operations, and the restart
of the third line will increase metal
production to full capacity by the end
of 2009. Noranda has brought back 38
laid­off workers to man the soon­tobe
functioning pots, taking the total
site workforce to around 900, but the
company does not expect to return to
the previous 1,150 employees.
Qatalum’s progress
Early in October construction of the
Qatalum smelter was more than 90%
complete and about 90% of the 1,100
target employees were in place to
start up the plant. Approx. 25 nationalities
are represented at the plant
with a strong showing of Qataris,
many of whom hold senior positions
in the company. It shows, Qatalum is
strongly committed to national development
at all levels.
The company is preparing to start
production of primary aluminium by
the end of 2009. As commissioning
begins, Qatalum employees are beginning
to take over control of various
operations from the contractors.
The Qatalum plant will include
a number of innovations and new
technological developments to provide
the best environmental performance
in the aluminium smelting
industry, such as low environmental
impact electrolysis technology, laser
guided pot tending machines in the
potrooms and state­of­the­art fume
treatment plants.
Qatalum will be the largest greenfield
smelter ever built in a single
phase. The smelter comprises two
1.2 km long potrooms containing 352
cells each, a casthouse that can produce
350,000 tpy of extrusion ingots
and 275,000 tpy of foundry alloys.
The adjacent carbon plant will prepare
and supply 300,000 baked anodes
and recycle 63,000 tpy of spent
anodes.
➝
47