Rusal agrees to acquire 30% stake in Chinese metallurgical company Hebei Wenfeng New Materials RBC.
As the company explains, “The partnership with Wenfeng will provide RUSAL with access not only to a stable source of alumina at better prices, but also to the world’s best technologies and practices for alumina production and environmental protection. This is a new development in the Leningrad region that the company previously announced It will help implement plans to build a new alumina refinery.”
The company had previously announced that it would establish a facility in the Leningrad region for 400 billion rubles to increase raw material security. The total capacity of the facility is planned to be 4.8 million tons. As stated in an interview MK St.Petersburg General Manager of the Projected Leningrad Alumina Refinery: “Today, some of the most advanced technologies for the construction of alumina production facilities are concentrated in China. “We are determined to make the new alumina refinery the best in the world, and we will definitely choose the most advanced technology, including environmental protection.”
The Hebei Wenfeng refinery, which started operating in March 2022, is one of the newest alumina production facilities in China. The facility has the most modern technologies to protect the environment, such as closed water circulation, dry sludge storage and sludge disposal system.
China is one of the leaders in alumina production and environmental protection. In 2022, over 10 million tons of new alumina production capacity was commissioned in China, and the total alumina production volume in China exceeded 76 million tons (more than half of the total world production).