Eurasian Resources Group Sàrl is investing US$5 billion in an expansion project to more than double its output by 2021, Reuters reported March 1, citing senior company executives.
ERG is registered in Luxembourg and has ferrochrome, aluminum and iron ore assets in Kazakhstan, copper and cobalt assets in Africa and iron ore mines in Brazil.
The company boosted output in 2017 by nearly 8% on a yearly basis to 254,000 tonnes of aluminum, and the planned capacity additions would add 270,000 tonnes over the next three years. To achieve this, ERG is sinking US$800 million into smelter expansion in 2019.
"We will be consuming more than 1 million tonnes of alumina (annually) and our dependence on [United Co. Rusal Plc] will be mostly gone," Roman Romanov, CEO of ERG subsidiary Kazakhstan Aluminum Smelter, told Reuters.
Two-thirds of the 1.5 million tonnes of alumina ERG produces annually goes to Rusal as part of a contractual agreement. When this contract expires at the end of 2019, Rusal may stop buying the company's alumina, ERG executives said.
