It also plans to install a €615,000 stub straightening machine very soon. Both items were supplied by the Outotec group.
Anode Plant Director, Ivan Grle said the press was fully operational, and was necessary to ensure the smooth production of rodded anodes, given that by changing the dimensions of the stubs on anode rods, the existing presses became a bottleneck in production.
The press replaced one of three existing presses, and unlike the old ones, the new press stripes all the three rings at the same time – He also pointed out production capacity with the new press amounts to 25 rods per hour, which speeds up production in the process of rodding. In addition, maintenance costs, downtime and failures have been reduced.
Last year the Aluminij Anode Plant produced 72,986t of green anodes, 69,095t of baked anodes and 68,440 pieces of rodded anodes. This year it plans to produce 76,758t of green anodes, 72,920t of baked anodes and 71,140 pieces of rodded anodes.