RusAl to spend $300mln on terminals at northwest Russian port

MOSCOW, June 8 - United Company RusAl will spend over $300 million on building two terminals at a port in northwestern Russia to supply aluminum products and alumina to world markets, the company said on Sunday. UC RusAl became the world's largest aluminum producer after a March 2007 merger between RusAl, rival Sual, and Swiss Glencore's alumina assets. On Sunday, UC RusAl and Ust-Luga Company, which is building a sea merchant port at Ust-Luga in the Gulf of Finland outside St. Petersburg, signed a memorandum on implementing a project to build the terminals, RusAl said in a statement. "The project will be RusAl's first step toward implementing a program to create its own specialized port capacity to enable the efficient transshipment of raw materials and finished products, in view of the company's plans to boost output," RusAl said. Under the document, the parties intend to bring the terminals into operation by 2011, with initial handling volumes of 2.5 million metric tons of alumina and 2 million metric tons of aluminum per year. The capacity of both terminals is expected to rise to 4.5 million metric tons of alumina and 3.5 million metric tons of aluminum annually, the statement said. Source: RIA Novosti