Comalco alumina refinery to hit capacity by year-end

Comalco’s 1.4-million tpy alumina refinery at Gladstone in Australia is on target to hit nameplate capacity by the end of this year, according to ultimate owner Rio Tinto.

The refinery was brought on line in Q4 2004 but has experienced an extremely slow ramp-up due to technical glitches—production last year, its first full year of service, was 835,000t, for example.

However, the refinery managed output of 302,000t in Q3 2006, just shy of the record 322,000t produced in the prior quarter despite two planned major shutdowns during the period, Rio Tinto said.

Meanwhile, production of alumina at the Queensland Alumina joint venture plant, in which Rio Tinto holds a 38.6% interest via Comalco, is running below year-earlier levels. Q3 output was 936,000t, down from 995,000t in Q3 2005, while cumulative production over the first nine months of this year fell to 2,877,000t from 2,980,000t in the year-earlier period, according to Rio, which gave no reason for the slight decline.

The Eurallumina refinery in Italy lifted output to 281,000t in Q3 from 267,000t in Q3 2005, while Jan-Sep 2006 production rose to 821,000t from 798,000t. Rio Tinto has agreed to sell its 56.2% interest in the plant to RusAl, dependent pre-emptive rights held by its minority partner Glencore. Of course, the announced merger of RusAl, SUAL and Glencore’s aluminium holdings should make such approval automatic.