RUSAL could boost Siberian smelting capacity by 83%

Interfax cited Mr Vadim Geraskin deputy general director of RUSAL Oleg Deripaska's United Company RUSAL plans to boost smelting capacity in Siberia 83% to more than 4.5 million tonnes in 2013. Mr Geraskin said the smelter that RUSAL was building in Taishet, Irkutsk region at a cost of RUB 3 billion would achieve full capacity of 750,000 tonnes per annum in 2013. The Boguchany smelter in the Krasnoyarsk territory will also hit full capacity of 600,000 tonnes per annum then. Mr Geraskin also said a feasibility study for the second-stage modernization of the Irkutsk smelter would be ready within a year. He said that RUSAL expects to start building a smelter in the Far East in 2014. One of three sites will be selected in 2009. --steelguru