The Rio Tinto logo on a building in Perth, Australia.Christine Chen/Reuters
Global mining giant Rio Tinto PLC will spend up to $1.7-billion to modernize a key power plant in Quebec, a major investment in its Canadian aluminum production at a time when President Donald Trump is pushing companies to make more metal in the United States.
The British-Australian miner said Thursday that it will launch a seven-year project to upgrade its Isle-Maligne hydroelectric generating plant, a 99-year-old facility in Alma, Que., that feeds power to its aluminum smelters in the region.
The company said it’s the largest single investment in its hydroelectric assets since the 1950s.
“This major investment to modernise our facilities will ensure the long-term future and competitivity of our low carbon aluminium production in Quebec for decades to come for our Canadian and American customers,” Sébastien Ross, managing director of Rio Tinto Aluminium’s Atlantic operations, said in a statement.
The plant currently has an installed capacity of about 448 megawatts.
The Trump administration imposed tariffs of 25 per cent on imports of aluminum and steel in March, including from Canada, in a bid to boost domestic production. The duties apply to raw steel and aluminum and to finished metal goods such as cans and barbecue grills, with an exemption for finished goods that use steel and aluminum “melted and poured” in the U.S.
The levies have already started to bite Canadian companies making aluminum products, forcing some to curtail production and cut their factory employees’ work hours. Shipments of raw aluminum, however, are still going strong, trucking company TFI International Inc. said last month.
Quebec Premier François Legault is trying to cement a meeting with Mr. Trump to discuss metals. He told a podcast interviewer this week that he wants to negotiate a long-term deal to supply the U.S. with aluminum at an attractive price so that the President “wouldn’t have any more worries” about it.
Rio Tinto’s latest investment builds on others it has made in Quebec in recent years.
In 2023, the company announced it would spend $1.4-billion to expand its aluminum manufacturing operations in Saguenay, adding 96 new pots to the existing 38 and increasing capacity to about 220,000 tonnes of primary aluminum a year. Pots are deep shells lined with carbon and insulating bricks in which aluminum is made through electrolysis.
Rio Tinto is the largest private producer of hydroelectricity in Canada, with eight hydro power plants.