Ever since the successful restart of Alpart alumina refinery in Jamaica; its Chinese owner Jiuquan Iron and Steel Company (JISCO) has been constantly brainstorming ideas to make the refinery most profitable by expanding production within a short span of time. The company now aims to upgrade the plant and expand its capacity so that it can facilitate one export shipment of alumina every month.
The company has already exported two shipments of alumina in just over six months since the reopening of the plant in June 2017.
According to the statement by Assistant Managing Director of JISCO Alpart refinery, Sun Jing, the company has already invested US$150 million in order to upgrade the plant in order to commence production so that they can attain the shipment target this year.
“I think we are lucky to have had the first shipment by the end of last year, and the end of February was (when we had) the second shipment of alumina. So far, the operation has already gone to a higher level, so we will have enough eventually to arrange at least one shipment per month,” Sun said.
The JISCO executive also pointed to the challenges faced by the company in getting the plant fully operational because of the outdated facilities in the southwestern parish of St Elizabeth. He said that the company has to engage more people to run this outdated plant. So they had to employ almost 900 Jamaicans for maintenance, operations and other relevant activities, which otherwise could have been managed with about 600-700 persons.
He emphasized the need of process modification and upgrade in order to maintain the plant operation smoothly.
“Until then, we just keep going…although some of the (input) costs are very high, like oil and caustic soda. So to survive for the long-term, we need to do the expansion as quickly as possible,” Sun said.
He insisted that the full modification and upgrading would take time. Once the design is done, the procurement process to buy equipment starts and it is followed by installation. Commissioning needs about a year. JISCO however, assures that the company will keep the facility’s operations going until the completion of modification and upgrading.
“Then we will have a chance to finish the new learning curve to bring this Alpart plant to the two million-tonne capacity per year,” he said.
JISCO has also signed a framework agreement with the Government of Jamaica to undertake major improvement works at the plant and at Port Kaiser. This includes expansion of the existing refinery, construction of a new alumina plant, liquefied natural gas (LNG) power plant and the creation of a Special Economic Zone. The sale of Alpart to JISCO has contributed 15 per cent towards the growth of Jamaica’s mining sector.
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