Paul Henning image
Kitimat Works' Fabrication crew makes the stars and Alcan donates the materials for the St. Paul's Hospital annual "Stars of Hope" light display.
 
Alcan Inc. manages its world-wide operations in six Business Groups: Bauxite and Alumina, Primary Metal, Rolled Products Americas and Asia, Rolled Products Europe, Engineered Products, and Packaging. In a major reorganization, Alcan Inc. is spinning off substantially all of its rolled products businesses to create Novelis Inc.* Effective January 1, 2005, Novelis will be the world’s largest aluminum rolled products company, with assets of $6.2 billion and 13,000 employees.

Following the separation, Alcan Inc. will be a US$20 billion company of 75,000 employees, operating in more than 60 countries. Its strengths will include leading positions in global bauxite and alumina, the world’s largest share of low-cost aluminum production, a strong engineered products business with significant presence in the aerospace industry, and a world-leading flexible and specialty packaging business.

* Formed from the words “novel”, “velocity” and “precision”. Novelis is expected to begin operating as an independent company on January 1, 2005, subject to regulatory approvals.
 

Profile of Our Business

Alcan Inc. Overview
 From its humble beginning in 1902 as the Northern Aluminum Company, a subsidiary of Alcoa and operator of a sole aluminum smelter in Shawinigan, Quebec, Alcan Inc. has grown to become a global leader in aluminum production, packaging, and recycling. The 2003 acquisition of Pechiney, one of France’s largest industrial companies, nearly doubled Alcan Inc.’s annual aluminum production capacity and gives the company the largest share of low-cost capacity in the world.

2003 Global Market Survey and Outlook for 2004
 The world’s major developed economies showed continuing hesitation in their recovery through 2003. Growth in world demand for aluminum was accordingly modest, driven largely by China’s rapid economic development. Production increases were overmatched by strengthened demand through three quarters of 2004, leading to a decline in global industry inventory levels for the first time in three years. Alcan Inc. projects a net reduction in global inventories of 100 to 200 kilotonnes through 2004, on the strength of the improving global economic climate and reduced exports from China and the former Eastern Bloc.

Alcan Primary Metal Group, B.C. Operations
(Kitimat Works)
One of British Columbia’s largest industrial complexes for half a century, Kitimat Works provides employment and business opportunities vital to the development of the northwest. From 1979 through 2003, Kitimat Works spent more than $1 billion in Northwest B.C. and almost $2 billion in total B.C. spending.

Raw Materials, Production and Employment
 Kitimat Works’ aluminum is produced in about 900 cells or “pots” by passing a powerful electrical current through alumina dissolved in a highly conductive electrolyte solution – separating the dissolved alumina into its constituent elements of aluminum and oxygen. Our core raw material is bauxite, mined and refined into alumina in Australia, and then transported by ship to Kitimat.

Kitimat Works’ electricity is supplied by our Kemano Powerhouse, delivered by transmission lines over more than 80 kilometres of mountainous terrain. Water stored in the Nechako Reservoir falls almost 800 metres through a tunnel and penstocks to drive the Powerhouse turbines. Kemano’s sustainable production is about 790 megawatts (MW) in normal water years.

In 2003, the Kemano Powerhouse generated 779 MW of electricity, 68 per cent of which was used by Kitimat Works, with the balance sold under the Long Term Electricity Purchase Agreement (LTEPA). LTEPA is a long-term contract with B.C. Hydro that commits Alcan to delivering an annual average of 140 MW of electricity to the provincial utility.

On December 31, 2003, Alcan B.C. employed 1,619 people, with annual payroll and benefits totalling $155.6 million, and payments to retirees totalling $29 million.

Products and Customers
After being cast into three types of ingots (sheet, billet and remelt), our aluminum is sold to other manufacturing enterprises around the world.

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