Multinational Rio Tinto will announce the construction of an aluminum smelter in Janquier in northeastern Quebec on Monday. The project is said to be worth between 1 and 1.5 billion dollars Press.
The company invited the media to “attend a major investment announcement” in Jonquière on Monday morning. The investment, the email says, “is part of the company’s vision for the future of its aluminum operations in Quebec.”
Rio Tinto Global Chief Executive Jakob Stousholm will attend, the invitation said. Also present will be Sebastian Ross, Director of Atlantic Operations for Rio Tinto Aluminum and Donat Pearson, President of the National Union of Aluminum Employees at Arvida. Representatives from the governments of Quebec and Canada will also participate, most notably Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy.
According to our information, the to-be-announced project will have an additional 96 AP60 technology cells capable of producing around 150,000 tonnes of aluminium. Several hundred jobs will be created or maintained at Rio Tinto, not to mention construction jobs.
The company built a 38-pot AP60 center in 2013, but low aluminum prices, among other factors, pushed back two subsequent phases of the promised 96 pots for several years. Monday’s project will bring aluminum production volume to around 200,000 tonnes (134 pots) with AP60.
During the conference, the possibility of gradually closing down the old waste smelter center in Arvida, which is very polluting, will also be discussed.
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