Aluminerie Alouette, better known as simply Alouette, has announced an expansion plan following successful negotiation of additional power from the Quebec Government.

The expansion will be known as Phase III, and will take the plant from 575,000t up to 930,000t. According to the newspaper reports, the project will last over 15 years, though this seems a little far fetched. The total cost of the project is estimated as US$2 billion.

The announcements said nothing of the technology to be deployed in the expansion, though it is almost certainly going to be AP4x. It could be 500KA, though I suspect the technical people at Rio Tinto Alcan will want to see the Jonquiere plant up and running for a while before they commit to a second smelter.

Alouette is 40% owned by RTA, with the rest being various government institutions from Quebec.

This announcement is probably a little overdue. I understand it had been held up over the wording of certain technical agreements and performance guarantees.

It also comes at a time when RTA is selling off smelters. It has already parcelled up its Australasian assets into a basket called Pacific Aluminium, and has put for sale signs in front of others, such as the smelter in Lynemouth UK and Sebree USA, down in Kentucky. The big difference being the cost of power, which is very low in Canada’s hydroelectric schemes. While the economics of the expansion might be clear-cut, it must be galling for the thousands of employees at RTA’s “black-marked” smelters to see Alouette growing when they are closing or sold.

Interesting on a personal note to see that the Plant Manager at Alouette was named as Andre Martel. Andre was previously Plant Manager at Tomago in Australia (my old stomping ground), though he didn’t arrive until I had left. By all reports, he did a great job during his stay “down under”.