Alcoa upgrades Quebec aluminum smelter, raises capacity

Alcoa has completed a $47 million infrastructure investment at its aluminum smelter in Deschambault, Quebec, that improves the plant's efficiency and boosts its nameplate capacity by 27,000 mt/year, the company said March 9.

"Through continuous improvement, we have been able to economically increase the capabilities of many of our assets, and this capital project at Deschambault should help us meet the strong demand we're seeing for sustainably produced aluminum," Chief Operations Officer John Slaven said in a statement.

Pittsburgh-based Alcoa said Deschambault's primary aluminum production capacity is now rated up to 287,000 mt/year from the 260,000 mt/year nameplate capacity listed in the aluminum producer's 2020 annual report.

The upgrades at Deschambault focused on the installation of upgraded electrical infrastructure, including the addition of a third electrical transformer to provide more amperage to the smelting pots, Alcoa said. Environmental equipment was also upgraded to maintain the smelter's environmental compliance as it increases aluminum production in the coming years, the company added.

The Canadian government supported the project at the smelter with a C$10 million ($7.8 million) contribution provided through its Strategic Innovation Fund.

Alcoa said it now has a total aluminum production capacity of 946,000 mt/year across its three aluminum smelters in Canada, all of which are certified under Aluminum Stewardship Initiative standards.

Its Canadian smelters are all powered by renewable hydroelectricity, and each facility set annual production records in 2021., the company added.

Alcoa CEO Roy Harvey told investors March 1 that the company would look to unlock incremental capacity at its existing facilities in the coming years as new supply is projected to lag behind demand this decade amid long-term bullish fundamentals for the aluminum market.

"Looking out at demand in 2030 and thinking about what exists today from a production standpoint and how much new capacity needs to come online... there's not enough capacity currently in the drawing book," Harvey said during a presentation at the BMO Capital Markets Global Metals & Mining Conference. "It takes a few years to bring a new smelter online, and there's a number of new coal-fired facilities that are still in the planning stages, but will those actually come to fruition?"

However, Harvey said Alcoa has no plans to build new smelters until it has fully developed its Elysis inert anode technology that will eliminate emissions from the smelting process.