Iran set for landmark jump of 70% in aluminum output
Time:Fri, 27 Apr 2018 05:03:44 +0800
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Iran’s aluminum production is headed for a landmark rise of 70% when a new smelter comes online early next year, making the country self-sufficient in the strategic metal. Deputy Minister of Industry, Mining and Trade Mehdi Karbasian said that the South Aluminum Corp smelter, being built in the city of Lamerd near the Persian Gulf, is about to add 300,000 tonnes per year of new capacity in the first phase to Iran’s current 400,000 tonnes.
The country’s aluminum consumption is less than 700,000 tonnes, and the operation of the new plant means Iran will need no more imports of the metal which is widely used in transportation, packaging, construction, electrical industry, consumer durables and machinery.
However, it will still need to import the raw ore bauxite or the refined ore alumina from which aluminum is made. According to Karbasian, bauxite resources discovered in the country so far are not sufficient enough to meet its demands.
Iranian Aluminum Company in the central city of Arak and Al Mahdi Aluminum Complex in Bandar Abbas are currently the two operational smelters which partially depend on alumina imports from India and bauxite from Guinea.
Guinea sits on the world’s largest reserves of bauxite estimated around 40 billion tonnes. In July 2015, Iran and Guinea revived a deal to extract bauxite in the African country after a delay of 25 years and ship it to the Middle East for aluminum production.
India’s National Aluminum Co Ltd planned to set up a 500,000 tonnes per year smelter and an associated power plant in Iran worth as much as USD 2.6 billion but put it on hold last year in order to focus on expanding domestic capacity.
Karbasian has said Iran was also in talks with bauxite producers in Australia and Brazil.
Iran’s own expansion includes building five new plants and raise aluminum output to 1.5 million tonnes per year by 2025. The country is currently the 20th largest producer of aluminum in the world.
Salco is being built by China Nonferrous Metal Industry’s Foreign Engineering and Construction Company with USD 1.2 billion which includes construction of a deep water port, Karbasian told the CRU Aluminum conference in London on 24 April.
