Qatalum progressing towards completion
(February 17, 2010)
In December, we marked the on-time start-up of Qatalum, one of the world's most cost-effective smelters, as a solid example of exceptional project management.
Qatalum CEO, Jan Arve Haugan, in the Cast House ahead of the robot stacking foundry alloy ingots
A single goal
The Qatalum management team has been focusing on a single goal: seeing the successful execution of this project and establishing Qatalum as a world-class operator and supplier of value-added Cast House products. Therefore, while building the plant, we have simultaneously built an organisation that focus on operational excellence.
When it reaches full capacity later this year, Qatalum will be one of the largest primary aluminium plants built in one phase, with an initial annual capacity of 585,000 tonnes of primary aluminium.
Challenges
The Qatalum development has faced two big waves of challenges. In a difficult and overheated market situation for all industries, we managed to select a strong team of contractors to execute the contracts and bring in the best available technologies and solutions. Then we were faced with an opposite market trend, when we were exposed to the financial crisis. We overcame both.
February 2010, sees us in the middle of the start-up, and we are delivering as we have committed. What is impressive is when you consider that more than 400,000 unique numbered pieces will have had to be put together to complete this plant, in a mere 30 months from start of construction to first metal!
Milestones
We started the first production, casted and exported the first foundry alloy ingots in December. In January, the “first fire” gas ignition in gas turbine number one was a key milestone at our Power Plant, and a well controlled ramp-up takes place in the Potrooms
Feedback from foundry alloy customers is positive, and the Cast House is now making good progress producing extrusion ingots. Soon the next two product lines will be on stream and the defined quality in the products is very impressive.
At present, the first alumina has been unloaded, after we received the third load of pitch in the last week of January. The 30,000 tonnes of alumina is the first shipment from the Worsley refinery in Western Australia and marks a milestone for the team that completed the harbour and raw material utilities.
Forward looking...
We have already met many of our preliminary targets. We have every expectation of being ready for full production in the autumn of 2010. As we look forward to the day the construction of the project is complete, we eagerly anticipate entering the next phase of existence, which will be fine-tuning our operations in full production.