Bauxite Company Wants to Build Power Plants

The new owners of Alpart and Windalco want to build two coal-generated power plants to support both those bauxite/alumina operations and export power into the national energy grid, company representative Igor Dorofeev has announced.
In an interview with JIS News, Mr. Dorofeev said the new owners, United Company Rusal (UC Rusal), was exploring the possibility of building two 90-megawatt power plants at each of the bauxite/alumina companies, while exporting as much as 120 megawatts of power into the national energy grid. The previous owners of the plants, Glencore, had already done a feasibility study on the project. “We are very interested in pursuing the project for it would lower our energy cost, increase efficiency, expand employment and allow us to contribute to strengthening the national energy grid,” said Mr. Dorofeev, whose Russian company has now opened an office in New Kingston. In April, UC Rusal took over the Glencore assets in both Alpart and Windalco as a result of further restructuring in the global aluminum industry. UC Rusal is not only the largest aluminum and alumina company in the world, employing over 100,000 persons in 17 countries, but is a major energy producer.
Director General in the Ministry of Information and Development, Dennis Morrison has said that, “the Company’s competitive position, with regard to energy and its energy resource base, is particularly important given the current and projected high cost of energy globally. UC Rusal has also inherited a strong research and development, and technology apparatus from the Soviet period that should allow it to function as a vertically integrated outfit deriving benefits from downstream activities.” Mr. Dorofeev told JIS News that the global company has made considerable progress in developing environmentally-friendly, clean coal-generated energy technologies. “The technology is very advanced for coal, so a lot of the earlier concerns are no longer valid,” he maintained.
UC Rusal, a company brochure says, “has further plans for growth by utilizing its access to power resources, exceptional in-house research and development capabilities, and the expertise of its highly qualified personnel.”
“This investment would be a good thing for Jamaica overall, and we are actively and enthusiastically pursuing it,” Mr. Dorofeev told JIS News.