It will spend $10M on the expansion of the bauxite residue containment site at its Vaudreuil Works alumina refinery in Jonquière, Quebec, Canada.
It will also bring forward the completion date of its Yarwun alumina refinery, Queensland, Australia expansion to August 2012.
Work at the Vaudreuil site expansion project will start before the end of 2010 and is expected to take three years.
Vaudreuil Works is the largest inorganic chemicals centre in Canada, with a production of 1.5Mt/y of alumina and speciality chemicals. Most of the alumina produced is smelter-grade alumina to be used for further processing into primary aluminium.
The US$1.9bn Yarwun expansion will more than double alumina production, to 3.4Mt/y.
The first bauxite will be processed in H1 2012, and the project totally complete in August 2012. The project is currently 59% complete and there are 1000 contractors on site. This will increase to approximately 1200 by mid 2011.
The expansion project’s cogeneration facility was handed over for commissioning in August, and is feeding power into the grid. The 160MW plant will reduce the CO2/t of alumina by 35% relative to coal. The expanded wharf facility is also complete and operational.