VANCOUVER -- Rio Tinto Alcan is investing $300 million US next year in its Kitimat smelter as part of a major expansion of its Canadian aluminum smelters.
“This is really, really good news,” Colleen Nyce, manager of communications and external relations for Rio Tinto Alcan in Kitimat, said in an interview Tuesday. “The recession crushed us. We were poised to go with this project, but we were slowed down.
“This $300 million will allow us to accelerate our construction schedule to keep the momentum going.”
The $300 million will be used for construction in preparation for the $2.5 billion US modernization of the Kitimat smelter, for which final approval is expected in 2011.
The construction involves demolishing an existing building and clearing the area for a new plant, building a new reduction services building, and relocating buildings on the site.
About $350 million US has already been spent on the modernization project.
Nyce said that about 400 temporary employees are expected to be hired for the project.
She said a camp will be built to house workers brought in to prepare the site.
Kitimat Mayor Joanne Monaghan said in an interview that while she’s pleased with Tuesday’s announcement, she hopes people who are hired will be from Kitimat.
“I’m happy about this for two reasons,” she said. “It’s putting money into our community. And it looks like the modernization will go ahead. And there will be less pollution going into the air.
“My only hope is that the jobs available are given to Kitimat and the region’s people.”
According to a release, Rio Tinto will also spend $758 million US to complete the first phase of a new plant in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec.
Nyce said the Kitimat modernization project will increase the smelter’s current production capacity by more than 48 per cent to approximately 420,000 tons per year. “Now, our maximum capacity is 282,000 tons.”
The modernized Kitimat smelter will be powered exclusively by hydroelectricity and use Rio Tinto Alcan’s proprietary AP technology to reduce its emissions intensity by more than 50 per cent per year, the release stated.
Jacynthe C?té， chief executive, Rio Tinto Alcan, said in a statement that the modernization of the Kitimat smelter is “a transformational project, in line with our strategic objective to grow via long-life, large-scale, low-cost assets. Once completed, Kitimat will be one of the lowest-cost smelters in the world.”
Nyce said that Rio Tinto didn’t lay anyone off in Kitimat during the slowdown, but that the use of contractors was cut back.
She said the modernization project will replace technology that’s more than half a century old and that the Kitimat smelter’s employees will eventually fall to about 1,000 from today’s 1,400.
“But there will be no layoffs because the reduction will come through attrition. If all the people retire that are slated to retire, it will bring us below 1,000 so we’ll have to rehire.”
Nyce said 90 per cent of the aluminum produced in Kitimat is exported to the Asia-Pacific market.
豫公网安备41010502003434号