Alcoa announced that the Company has approved the next phase of 5 year, USD 2.1 billion investment plan for its Baie Comeau, Deschambault and Becancour smelters in Quebec. The plan will move the Quebec smelters down the aluminum cost curve by 13 percentage points and contribute to Alcoa’s goal of achieving an overall 10 point improvement. The plan will also increase production capacity by 120,000 tonnes per year and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The plan includes 25 year power contracts for all three smelters and allows the aluminum smelter in Baie Comeau to immediately undertake the last engineering phase of its modernization project with plans to have a new potline in service by the end of 2015. In addition, the preliminary engineering phase of the Deschambault smelter’s amperage increase project will be launched as early as the end of this year. The investments will allow Alcoa to optimize every mega watt hour of power used in the Quebec smelters.

As part of the modernization at Baie Comeau, the older smelting pots using Soderberg technology will be replaced with an all new electrolysis potline developed by Alcoa with an annual production capacity of 160,000 tonnes. These enhancements will reduce the plant’s greenhouse gas emissions by 40%. Through technology advancements made at Alcoa’s global Smelting Center of Excellence, the plan will also allow Deschambault to increase its amperage to 405,000 amperes by 2016, increasing the plant’s capacity by 25,000 tonnes per year.

Roughly 6,800 job years will be sustained during the construction phase of the Baie Comeau modernization, generating about USD 500 million in economic spin offs.

Mr Pierre Morin president of Alcoa Canada Global Primary Products said that “The Government of Québec has clearly envisioned the mutual benefits stemming from this new investment plan and that’s what enables us to look to the future with confidence. Moving to this next phase in our development program is cause for celebration for our families as well as our communities. I want to thank all our employees who have been essential collaborators in this initiative.”