Paste Plant produces its one millionth anode

On the 2nd December 2013, at 10:04 hrs, Paste Plant produced their 1,000,000th green anode – a significant milestone in the history of the Carbon Plant, and for Qatalum.

​​The Qatalum Paste Plant has faced many challenges in producing anodes, from the day it started in January 2010. It took almost 2 months to produce its first good anode, and several weeks of commissioning before the plant was able to produce at full 60 tons per hour capacity. Performance tests and fine tuning took a further 18 months, until finally the plant was able to produce at the required throughput and quality.

​​Much of the improvement came from teamwork and the use of QPS tools and methodologies, for example the standardisation of processes to start and stop the plant.

​​Today, the paste plant produces at close to 80% uptime and is continuously improving to reach the 90% uptime target which is considered best practice in the industry.

image2.jpg​​Paste Plant Team B and C, with Supervisors and PP Manager Sunil on far left

Image3.jpg ​​Paste Plant Team A and D + Day Team, with Supervisors and PP Manager

“We have achieved this milestone of producing 1 million green anodes only through the hard work and dedication of the entire Carbon team, past and present. We look forward to producing the next million anodes,” said Sunil Bhajun, Paste Plant Manager.