Dutch company Fondel Metal, which produces aluminium in Azerbaijan, plans to boost primary aluminium and alumina output there in the years to come as it seeks to expand and cut raw material costs. Fondel manages Azerbaijan's Azeraluminium group, which includes the Sumgait smelter - Azerbaijan's only smelter - as well as the Ganja refinery and an alunite raw materials mine.
Ali Ozkurt, Fondel's manager for Azerbaijan, told Reuters in an interview that the company would raise primary aluminium production as high as 33,000 tonnes next year from about 30,000 tonnes planned for 2004.
"We hope that in 2006 the Sumgait smelter will be producing up to 60,000 tonnes, mainly due to the planned launch of two additional production units," Ozkurt said.
Azeraluminium exports account for about 35 percent of Azerbaijan's total non-oil exports, and it mainly sells its output to Iran, India and Turkey and Central Asian countries.
He said alumina production will rise to 430,000 tonnes next year from this year's planned 305,000 tonnes.
"In 2005, the Ganja refinery will be able to produce up to 430,000 tonnes of alumina, while in 2006 that number should go up to 450,000 tonnes," he said.
Ozkurt said the company had already started working on a feasibility study to build a new aluminium plant near Ganja.
"...construction will start in spring 2005," he said, without specifying how much it would produce.
The company refines alumina from bauxite it imports from Africa but Ozkurt said the company was considering reviving an alunite raw materials mine near Ganja.
"Most producers these days don't produce alumina from alunite any more - they mainly use bauxite. Alunite in Azerbaijan was used in Soviet times and led to big ecological problems," he said.
"We are trying to solve that problem and start using alunite as it would help us cut transport costs."