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Aluminium giant committed to green growth

By Chen Jialu (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-04-07 11:19

The green mining blueprint was first practiced in Chinalco's Guangxi mines, where the mined-out areas were restored into farmland.

By far, about 93 percent of Chinalco's mines across the nation have been turned into farmland, and its soil fertility and vegetation cover ration go higher than the level before development, the company says.

Chinalco vowed to reduce the emission of sulphur dioxide by 10 percent in the 11th Five-Year Program period (2006-2010), and cut energy consumption, and water consumption of the industrial added value by 20 percent and 30 percent respectively.

Thanks to the new technologies, Chinalco's energy consumption is falling. In 2007, power use for alumina per ton dropped by 21 percent, while that of aluminum per ton fell by 3 percent, Ao Hong, vice-president of Chinalco says.

It has also developed a process that improves the utilization efficiency of the ore to reduce energy consumption by 41.7 percent and save standard coal consumption by 689,000 tons annually.

Chinalco is currently constructing a 200,000-ton-per-year secondary aluminum plant in Qingdao. The plant will save 2.8 billion kW-hours of power and 2 million tons of water compared to what's required to traditionally produce the same amount of primary aluminum.

By 2008, Chinalco plans to reach the goal of "zero waste-water discharge from its facilities", with over 200 million yuan invested to upgrade its water recycling system, says Ao.

Last year, above 80 percent of Chinalco's alumina producers reduced their sewage discharges, a move that resulted in a reduction of 33.77 million tons of industrial sewage discharged annually.

"Now, some of our plants are no longer discharging wastewater. What's more, some of our plants can treat more water than they discharge," says Xiao Yaqing, president of Chinalco.

In 2007, Chinalco posted an annual rise of 8.8 percent in alumina output; 20.7 percent in raw aluminum and aluminum alloy output; and 27.4 percent in aluminum materials output, according to a company statement.

Chinalco has also signed an agreement in November to build and operate a $3 billion aluminum smelter at Jazan Economic City (JEC), Saudi Arabia.

The low electricity tariff in JEC will lower the plant's energy consuming costs, says Chalco.

Energy costs an average of $20 per megawatt-hour in the Middle East, compared with $28 in the United States and $40 in China for the same measure, according to Fitch, an international rating agency.

A related 1,860MW power plant will also be built costing an estimated $2 billion. That will eventually form part of a power-generating complex serving the whole city with total output exceeding 5,000MW.

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