RUSAL has no plans to acquire more assets in Europe

MOSCOW, October 10 -- Russia's leading alumina and aluminum producer RUSAL has no immediate plans for acquiring more assets in Europe. "Everything that was of interest to us in Europe is already ours," said the company's international and special projects director, Alexander Livshits at the Russian-British investment forum. About the company's operations in Russia Livshits said it would be developing the electric power industry not just for the sake of aluminum production, but also for selling power on the energy market. The company's chief, Oleg Deripaska, earlier said RUSAL was expecting an escalation of electric power tariffs and for that reason planning to build its own generating facilities with a capacity of 6.5 megawatts. "We believe it is necessary to create our own power generating base, our own sources of electric power," he said. Deripaska explained that in that connection RUSAL would in the first place rely on hydro-power and coal-fired power plants. Also it was exploring the possibility of using nuclear power. As an example he mentioned the company's plans for building an aluminum smelter near a future nuclear power plant in the Far East. RUSAL exports products to customers in 70 countries around the world. It controls 12.5 percent of the world market of aluminum and 16 percent of the world market of alumina.