RUSAL, the Russia-based aluminum giant, announced its plans to invest $151.2 million over three years toward the development of the Mykolaiv Alumina Plant (MAP). According to RUSAL Deputy General Director Aleksandr Livshits, who visited the plant on Friday last week, over $48.4 million will be invested in 2006, $71.6 million in 2007, and $31.2 million in 2008. It is also planned that the alumina production will grow from 1.3 million tons up to 1.6 million tons in 2009.
Mr. Livshits also reported that RUSAL is in negotiation with the Ukrainian government for construction of an aluminum plant in Ukraine. “In seven or eight years we plan to come to the fore in the world for aluminum production. Competitors will give up to the pace we set,” he said.
Owner of 75.4 percent of the MAP stock, RUSAL invested over $26.2 million in 2004 for production upgrade, raising the plant’s output to 1.3 million tons. In 2005, investments totaled $36.7 million.
MAP, one of Europe’s biggest alumina producers, uses its own sea port, which is the only port in the CIS that specializes in bauxite transshipment, with an annual throughput of six million tons. According to Kateryna Bohacuk, general director of the RUSAL-related company Aluminum of Ukraine, a good deal of attention will be paid to the port development. She said, “We see the Dnieper-Bug Sea Port as a major structure in the operating cycle.”
Mykolaiv Alumina Plant was founded in 1980. The enterprise specializes in production of metallurgic alumina, and also produces aluminum hydroxide, industrial gallium, cast-iron, steel and alloy castings, and aluminous cakes. The plant has 3,500 employees. In 2005, MAP produced UAH 1.382 billion worth of products.
RUSAL, founded in 2000, is one of the world’s top three aluminum companies, being the only private one among them. The company operates in nine regions of Russia and 13 other countries, employing a total of about 50,000 people. In 2005, RUSAL earned $6.1 billion.
