Kitimat Modernization Project

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Bechtel is currently modernizing Rio Tinto Alcan’s (RTA) 57-year-old Kitimat aluminum smelter in British Columbia, Canada. The modernization will create an environmentally superior, safer, and more productive smelter, elevating RTA’s British Columbia Operations entity to a world-class aluminum producer. Bechtel is responsible for engineering, procurement, and construction management of the project.

The modernization will employ the latest evolution in RTA’s state-of-the-art Aluminum Pechiney (AP) Prebake technology. Production levels will be boosted to about 400,000 tonnes per year, and will reduce total environmental emissions by more than 40 percent, including some 500,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually. The facility will have a design life of 35 to 50 years.

The modernized smelter will bring major economic benefits to Kitimat and the region, and as one of the most cost-effective smelters in the world, will be significantly less vulnerable to industry fluctuations. With the effort of more than 2,000 manual and nonmanual personnel, the modernized smelter will produce first aluminum in Q1 of 2014, and will be in full production by Q3 of 2014.