Auto industry to lose more weight

With high petrol prices, the next generation of cars will use less petrol to travel the same distance. This in turn cuts exhaust emissions leading to benefits such as reduced emissions and lower taxes.

"A fact closer to Qatar is that Hydro, Qatalum’s joint venture partner remains a supplier to Toyota and Bentley"

Modern vehicles in general are using aluminium to cut a vehicle’s weight by 10% which boosts fuel economy by around eight percent. The super strength of aluminium means there is also no reduction in vehicle safety.

Each kilogram of aluminium used to replace heavier metals in a car’s body cuts petrol consumption by around 8.5 litres and carbon dioxide emissions by 20 kilograms over the life of the car. Aluminium in many standard passenger cars had jumped from around 64 kilograms to about 130 kilograms per vehicle in the past decade, but there was still enormous potential for more aluminium content. Substituting aluminium for higher density traditional materials is already saving around 1,000 litres of petrol over the life of today's average passenger car or light truck, and if you double this to around 260 kilograms of aluminium it could bring this saving to over 2,000 litres of petrol per car.

"if the use of aluminium in the transportation industry continues to increase as projected, it will make the entire aluminium industry ‘greenhouse gas neutral’ by the year 2017"

For example, Ferrari's all-aluminium 612 Scaglietti had reduced that car’s weight by a whopping 40%. Other car manufacturers including VW/Audi, Ford, BMW and Jaguar are also steadily increasing aluminium content. A fact closer to Qatar is that Hydro, Qatalum’s joint venture partner remains a supplier to Toyota and Bentley.

Experts believe that if the use of aluminium in the transportation industry continues to increase as projected, it will make the entire aluminium industry ‘greenhouse gas neutral’ by the year 2017. This means the greenhouse gas impacts of producing aluminium will be fully offset by the emissions saved from using aluminium in the transport industry. Aluminium is the only industry in the world able to make that claim.

Qatalum is a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and Hydro. It will have a capacity in the first phase of 585,000 tonnes of primary aluminium.