Smoke rises from the chimneys of the Arvida smelter in Saguenay, Que., in 2025.Renaud Philippe/The Globe and Mail
Rio Tinto Group RIO-N has launched operations of its new US$1.5-billion low-carbon aluminum smelter expansion in Quebec’s Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region with a view to deploying the proprietary AP60 technology used on site in other parts of the world.
The first batch of 96 new pots at the Arvida Complex in Saguenay are now online with all the pots expected to be operating by the end of the year, the Anglo-Australian mining giant said Friday at an event to mark the commissioning. Pots are deep shells lined with carbon and insulating bricks in which aluminum is made through electrolysis.
The launch brings into production the first major primary aluminum project in the West in more than a decade, Rio Tinto said. Company officials said they are exploring whether they can use the AP60 high-amperage smelting technology, developed in-house by their research and development teams, in other international markets.
“One of the pillars of our strategy is to have a more global presence in aluminum smelters” beyond the company’s two main hubs in Canada and Australia-New Zealand, said Jérôme Pécresse, who leads Rio Tinto’s aluminum and lithium businesses. That could be through new investments, greenfield projects or possibly through acquisitions, with a deployment of AP60, he said.
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One model that could be duplicated elsewhere is in Finland, where Rio Tinto struck a partnership in 2024 with Swedish investment company Vargas Holding, Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp., and other international and local industry players to analyze the feasibility of a new aluminum project in the town of Kokkola. Rio Tinto is a major investor in the partnership and would supply access to the AP60 technology for the venture.
“We can’t do five projects like that at once, but this kind of strategic partnership model is a good one,” Mr. Pécresse said. He said the miner is also taking a preliminary look at a possible project in India, but it hasn’t decided what smelting technology might be appropriate there.
Combining the AP60 technology with the hydropower used in Rio Tinto’s Canadian operations generates one-sixth of the greenhouse gas emissions per tonne of aluminum compared with the industry average, the company said. Fine particulate matter in the air would also be reduced significantly, it said.
The expansion at the Arvida Complex will increase the plant’s production capacity by approximately 160,000 tonnes of primary aluminum a year, Rio Tinto said. When all the new pots are up and running, the company said it will produce 220,000 tonnes of aluminum a year with AP60 technology at the site.
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Aluminum making is growing in importance as countries move to shore up their industrial capabilities and boost their strategic security. The metal is widely used, not only in consumer products such as soda cans, but also in aerospace and defence applications.
Producers such as Rio Tinto and others are facing increasing pressure to curb their greenhouse gas emissions even as global demand for the metal surges. The Canadian and Quebec governments are both trying to help industry players achieve this by, for example, investing in the ELYSIS technology pioneered by Rio Tinto and Alcoa Corp., AA-N which eliminates carbon dioxide emissions altogether and replaces them with oxygen.
Rio Tinto is gradually closing older pot lines at a separate location nearby, as the company increases output for the AP60 facility. Together with the launch of a previously-announced recycling centre at the Arvida site, the expansion will more than offset the capacity that is coming offline, the company said.
Canada is the world’s fourth-largest primary aluminum producer, after China, India and Russia, according to federal government statistics. Quebec is home to nine of Canada’s 10 aluminum smelters.