An American, and Hong Kong-based aluminum firms are to begin a feasibility study in Jamaica for the setting up of a joint alumina processing plant, that if undertaken, would increase by a third, the island's present smelting capacity.

The US-based firm Century Aluminum Company, the company from Hong Kong, Minmetals Aluminum Company, have already entered into an agreement to explore the possibility of the investment.

The feasibility study which is expected to begin soon will take 18 months to complete. The plant itself could be brought to fruition within six years.

Yesterday, Giulio Caseloo, Century's vice president of bauxite and alumina confirmed in an interview with the Business Observer, the plans for the venture.

"The initial stage is to prospect the land owned by the government to determine the feasibility of the project," Caseloo said.

The proposed site of the plant is south of Discovery Bay. This is where the "pre-feasibility stage" of the survey will focus - to assess the quality and quantity of bauxite reserves. This stage is expected to take approximately 18 months.

Currently, industry standard for converting bauxite to alumina is approximately two metric tonnes of bauxite for every tonne of alumina. Therefore, for the venture to be feasible, the survey would have to reveal deposits of the ore that could yield three million tonnes of bauxite yearly.

As now proposed, the plant would have a capacity to refine
1.5 million metric tonnes of alumina, and would require capital outlay of around US$1.5 billion (J$98 billion).
Caseloo told the Business Observer that if this stage was successful, a full feasibility study would follow. The feasibility and construction time to production capacity would be about six years.

"If that proves successful, we will go unto the next stage to determine the financial feasibility of the project," Caseloo explained. "That should take 12 to 18 months as well, and construction could take another two to three years."

The cost of the project, Caseloo says, will "depend on the bauxite - quantity and quality - and the infrastructure required." However, he explained that based on industry standards, it cost US$1,000 per metric tonne to build an alumina refinery.

Therefore, the cost to build the plant of the capacity being contemplated would be around US$1.5 billion.
Such a facility would increase Jamaica's current capacity by a third. Jamaica's output of alumina last year, was four million metric tonnes - which required around eight million tonnes of bauxite. Some four million tonnes of raw bauxite was mined for export.

Century is a publicly listed company in the United States, with Glencore, the parent of West Indies Alumina Company (Windalco), owning 29 per cent.

Century's primary aluminum capacity will stand at 745,000 metric tonnes per year (mtpy) by the end of 2006, when the expansion of the 90,000 mtpy plant at Grundartangi, Iceland, to 220,000 mtpy, will be completed .

Using the two-to-one conversion rate of alumina to aluminum, the Jamaican plant would increase the company's aluminum output by 750,000 mtpy, doubling its capacity.

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