Alcoa, BHP to Start Output at Alumar Refinery Expansion in 2010

Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Alcoa Inc., the largest U.S. aluminum maker, and BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest mining company, said the expanded Alumar refinery will begin operating in the first quarter of 2010, a director said. The expansion, in the final stage of construction, will start test production of alumina in the first quarter of next year, said Nilson Ferraz, an Alumar production director, in an interview today. The companies are adding 2.1 million tons a year capacity to the plant in Maranhao state in northeastern Brazil. It now produces 1.4 million tons a year of alumina. “Commercial-quality production will start in second-half 2010,” Ferraz said from Sao Luis. The Alumar expansion, originally scheduled for 2008, was delayed partly because of cost overruns, BHP Billiton said earlier this year. Rio Tinto Alcan Inc., the world’s third-largest mining company, has a 10 percent stake in the expansion project. Alumina is a raw material used in primary aluminum production. To contact the reporter on this story: Diana Kinch in Rio de Janeiro at dkinch1@bloomberg.net