11 MARCH 2014Metalbulletin.com
Rio Tinto Alcan confirms Arvida outage
Edited by : AL CIRCLE
2 min read
Rio Tinto Alcan confirmed a planned maintenance outage at its Arvida smelter in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec.
The Montreal-based aluminium producer will shut the casting center at the smelter for seven to 10 days to perform maintenance work on the facility's furnaces and casting pits, a company spokeswoman told Metal Bulletin sister title AMM via e-mail on March 6.
Customers won't be affected because the maintenance had been planned, she said, declining to reveal when the maintenance would begin.
The spokeswoman's confirmation came after market sources noted in February that the Arvida smelter, which has an annual capacity of 176,000 tonnes, was scheduled to have a 10-day maintenance outage this month.
Rio Tinto Alcan also was reportedly suffering from logistical problems due to an unusually harsh winter in North America, market sources said. Cold and snowy weather has made it difficult to get rail cars to and from Quebec on time, and to replace lost rail car capacity with trucks, they said.
The difficult weather, however, has not hit the company's production, the spokeswoman confirmed in a separate e-mail.
"The transportation of some raw materials, as well as some of our aluminium products, has been impacted by the severe weather conditions in the USA," she said, adding that it could take "at least a few more weeks" before a normal flow of rail cars resumes. "Rio Tinto Alcan's teams are following the situation very closely and are looking for alternative methods of transport where possible."
In the meantime, aluminium production continues "seven days a week, 365 days a year," she said.
The Montreal-based aluminium producer will shut the casting center at the smelter for seven to 10 days to perform maintenance work on the facility's furnaces and casting pits, a company spokeswoman told Metal Bulletin sister title AMM via e-mail on March 6.
Customers won't be affected because the maintenance had been planned, she said, declining to reveal when the maintenance would begin.
The spokeswoman's confirmation came after market sources noted in February that the Arvida smelter, which has an annual capacity of 176,000 tonnes, was scheduled to have a 10-day maintenance outage this month.
Rio Tinto Alcan also was reportedly suffering from logistical problems due to an unusually harsh winter in North America, market sources said. Cold and snowy weather has made it difficult to get rail cars to and from Quebec on time, and to replace lost rail car capacity with trucks, they said.
The difficult weather, however, has not hit the company's production, the spokeswoman confirmed in a separate e-mail.
"The transportation of some raw materials, as well as some of our aluminium products, has been impacted by the severe weather conditions in the USA," she said, adding that it could take "at least a few more weeks" before a normal flow of rail cars resumes. "Rio Tinto Alcan's teams are following the situation very closely and are looking for alternative methods of transport where possible."
In the meantime, aluminium production continues "seven days a week, 365 days a year," she said.
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