Don’t forget Iran (Part 1)

I am in Tehran, at the 3rd Iran International Aluminium Conference. Over the next couple of posts, I will bring you the latest news, opinions, plans and claims from the speakers and from around the delegates.

There are several things that immediately struck me about this conference:

• The conference has a strong downstream element, with several papers examining things like the latest in the treatment of alloys for PV cells, or how to improve the life of your extrusion press. Nevertheless, the papers that dealt with Iran’s aluminium industry, upstream dynamics, the growth of primary aluminium and issues relating to raw materials were worth listening to.
• There is a strong Chinese presence here, with NFC and NEUI having what looks to be at least a dozen people here. NFC is a diamond sponsor of the conference.
• The organisation of the conference could improve, but generally has been okay so far.

Probably the most important feature of the conference is the announcement and explanation of the new smelter for Southern Aluminium Company (SALCO). This smelter is planned to start in about 3 years time, with initial capacity starting at 300,000t, but eventually growing to 1 million tonnes. To be built by NFC using a NEUI 400KA design, the smelter will eventually use alumina refined at a new refinery in Iran, but using Guinean bauxite. The smelter will be in the south of the country, in Arak.

According to today’s presentation, the plant will have 258 pots in phase 1, each producing 3.2 tonnes per day. The design calls for anode consumption to be 410KG/T AL, and a DC rate of 13,000KWH. The adjacent power plant will be 1000MW, and will take 36 months to build.

The plant will nominally produce 144,000t of ingot, 70,000t of slab and 86,000t of billet, though one of the speakers told us that plans are already under way to convert some of this capacity to liquid metal transfers.

Another speaker told us of the whole-of-life calculations that went into the decision to locate the alumina refinery in Iran rather than in Guinea. Although Iran holds the lease for the bauxite, when taking into account capital costs, infrastructure development costs and operating costs, Iran came slightly ahead.

There were several other interesting papers, some of them for the wrong reasons, so I will post more soon.