Alpart ready to export bauxite to Rusal as it awaits its December 2016 reopening

Timothy O’Driscoll has been promising the reopening of the Alpart alumina refinery ever since he took over as managing director in 2009. Although there is still an expected 18-19 months time for that dream to be realized, last Thursday there was a glimmer of hope with the visit of Phillip Paulwell.

The Mining minister got a rare walkthrough of Alpart, the mining operations as well as Port Kaiser that is being prepared for bauxite shipment in July.

While the refinery plans to reopen, the mining and stockpiling operations of fresh bauxite have begun in March.

Under a recent agreement between the Jamaican Government and Alpart’s Russia-based company Rusal, two million tons of raw bauxite will be exported to Russia bringing home revenue US $60 million.

Igor Dorofeev, country manager for UC Rusal in Jamaica assured everyone including Paulwell that this arrangement is only for the time-being. Once the refinery is up and running, there will be no more export of bauxite and the port will be quickly tweaked to facilitate alumina export.

The refinery had shut down in May 2009 as an aftermath of economic meltdown causing job losses for over 900 people. The refinery pumped more than US $ 600 million to the Jamaican economy annually and Paulwell repeatedly stresses on the importance of its re-opening as t will provide “genuine value added” and substantial employment.