Russian aluminum giant UC RUSAL has launched a $23.7 million coke calcination unit with a capacity of 72,000 tons annually at its plant in Irkutsk (IrkAZ), the company said in a statement on August 15.
The unit will produce calcined coke, which will be used at the Sayanogorsky Aluminum Plant to make baked anodes.
Currently Russia is short of calcination capacity and as a result, customers of calcined coke are forced to purchase the finished product in China at high prices, RUSAL said.
“By increasing our in-house capacity for calcined coke production, RUSAL will be able to gradually abandon the supplies from third parties and cut costs by $8 million a year,” the statement read citing Evgeny Nikitin, Head of Aluminum Business.
RUSAL’s calcination capacity includes IrkAZ as well as the Bratsk and Krasnoyarsk Aluminium Smelters (KrAZ). At year-end 2016, BrAZ and KrAZ produced about 800,00 tons of calcined coke, which satisfied 61% of the demand of RUSAL’s aluminum smelters. After the IrkAZ calciner is launched, self-sufficiency of this material inside the company will increase to 71%. (Prime/Ukrainian metal)