Operational Overview
Facilities
Rio Tinto Alcan Primary Metal BC’s Kitimat smelter (Kitimat Works) is now more than 50 years old. Its rated annual production capacity is 275,000 tonnes of primary aluminum. Production takes place in seven potrooms containing more than 900 steel pots, and requires large amounts of raw materials and electricity.
The principle raw material is alumina, an ore refined from bauxite that contains bonded aluminum and oxygen. Alumina, which is imported from Australia by ship, is dissolved in a molten bath in the pots, and electricity is used to break the aluminum-oxygen bond. This results in the production of molten (or “hot”) metal and is referred to as the reduction process.
Hot metal is transported to the smelter’s casting centres, where alloys are added to provide specific characteristics such as strength and corrosion resistance. It is then poured into moulds and chilled with water to form ingots of specified shapes and sizes.
Kitimat is the site of a deep-water port, and Rio Tinto Alcan Primary Metal BC’s wharf facilities are the point of arrival for most raw materials and the point of departure for most finished product.
Electricity is generated at the company’s Kemano hydroelectric powerhouse, located 75 km southeast of Kitimat. The powerhouse has a firm average capacity of 700 megawatts and an average production of about 790. It generates power using water impounded in and diverted from the approximately 90,000 -hectare Nechako Reservoir in north-central British Columbia.
People
Rio Tinto Alcan Primary Metal BC employed 1,481 people as of December 31, 2007, excluding employees on long-term disability. This included 1,447 people working at the Kitimat smelter, 32 working on shifts at the Kemano powerhouse, and a single employee in each of Vanderhoof and Vancouver.
Rio Tinto Alcan Primary Metal BC is a unionized workplace and 80 per cent of the workforce (1,180 employees as of December 31, 2007) is represented by Local 2301 of the Canadian Auto Workers Union. The non-unionized workforce is primarily made up of people performing managerial, supervisory, professional, and administrative functions.
Among union members, 95 per cent (1,122 employees) are in full-time permanent positions, with the remainder working on an as-needed basis. When full-time, permanent unionized positions become available, they are offered to temporary employees based on seniority. All non-union members are in full-time permanent positions.
“People Advantage” is a set of practices and programs which was recently formalized as a key component of management systems at Rio Tinto Alcan Primary Metal BC and other Rio Tinto Alcan operations. The objective is to develop preferred work environments, training and development opportunities, and employee recognition and engagement.
Key People Advantage initiatives during 2007 included continued delivery of a multi-year supervisor development program. Most supervisors completed at least the first two of the six phases of this program during 2007, and many progressed to the third.
In May, 2007, the fifth global employee survey was conducted throughout Alcan. This is an opportunity for confidential employee feedback, and has been the basis for the development of new programs and management systems, such as People Advantage.
At 75 per cent, Rio Tinto Alcan Primary Metal BC had a significantly higher response rate than in the past, and one of the highest among operations of its size. Overall, there were improvements in the favourable ratings on 80 per cent of the questions repeated from the previous survey.
Production
During 2007, Rio Tinto Alcan Primary Metal BC produced 241,738 tonnes of hot metal, a slightly higher level than the previous year. Production is cast into either value-added sheet (rectangular) or extrusion/billet (cylindrical) ingots, or into trilock ingots for re-melting.
The proportion of production represented by value-added products was down, due in part to weak markets for sheet metal. Products were shipped to Asian and North American markets – principally Japan, Korea, southeast Asia, and the United States.
Total sales were up somewhat in 2007, at 243,700 tonnes of ingot. Average value and estimated earnings were also up at US$2,859 per tonne and US$696.7 million, respectively. Rio Tinto Alcan Primary Metal BC contributed proportionately to on-target performance during 2007 with respect to key corporate financial objectives.
Rio Tinto Alcan
Rio Tinto Alcan’s BC operations are part of its North American Primary Metal Group. Rio Tinto Alcan is a global business whose primary products are bauxite, alumina and primary aluminum. It is headquartered in Montreal, and was formed in October, 2007, from the combination of Alcan Inc. and the aluminum assets of Rio Tinto, of which it is a product group.
Rio Tinto is a leading international mining group headquartered in the UK, combining Rio Tinto plc, a London listed company, and Rio Tinto Limited, which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. Its business is finding, mining and processing a wide diversity of mineral resources. Its activities span the world but are strongly represented in Australia and North America, with significant interests in South America, Asia, Europe and southern Africa.
Training and Development at Rio Tinto Alcan Primary Metal BC Operations
In recent years, Rio Tinto Alcan Primary Metal BC has collaborated with Simon Fraser University to enable employees to pursue post-secondary opportunities without leaving their jobs or their communities. This began with an MBA offering, and has since been expanded.
In 2007, a group of 12 employees completed a graduate certificate course in applied sustainability. A new group of 17 also began pursuing bachelor-level studies in liberal arts and business, a program that attracts a particularly diverse range of employees.
Participants do class work at the Kitimat Valley Institute, during a combination of working hours and their own time, and the programs have been designed for particular relevance to the Rio Tinto Alcan Primary Metal BC working environment. With the exception of the graduate certificate program, they are also open to other members of the community.
Opportunities such as this have important benefits from a capacity-development and retention standpoint. Operations and maintenance superintendent Mark Annibal was among the first graduates from the liberal arts and business program in 2006, and says the program broadened his understanding of areas such as business and change management, and has better enabled him to engage with the full range of his professional colleagues.
Individual employees are also supported in pursuing approved external training opportunities, apprenticeships, and a range of other more specialized internal training offerings. During 2007, approximately 51,700 hours of in-house training sessions were provided to employees. This included training relating to environment, health and safety; information technology; code of conduct; human rights; new-employee induction; and technical and trades roles.
