The Bell Bay aluminium smelter is located on the
Tamar River
The Tamar River, officially kanamaluka / River Tamar, is a estuary located in northern Tasmania, Australia. Despite being named a river, the waterway is a brackish and tidal estuary over its entire length.
Etymology
The Tamar River was named ...
at
Bell Bay,
Tasmania
Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
. The smelter has a production capacity of 178,000 tonnes of aluminium per year.
It is owned and operated by Pacific Aluminium, a wholly owned subsidiary of
Rio Tinto Alcan
Rio Tinto Alcan is a Canada-based mining company. Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, it is a subsidiary of global mining conglomerate Rio Tinto. It was created on 15 November 2007 as the result of the merger between Rio Tinto's Canadian subsi ...
.
History
The Bell Bay smelter commenced production in 1955 as a joint venture between the Commonwealth and Tasmanian governments. The smelter was the first built in the Southern Hemisphere primarily to overcome difficulties importing aluminium during wartime. Bell Bay was chosen as the location because of the available hydroelectric power and deep water facilities. Rio Tinto Aluminium purchased the smelter in 1960, when production was about 12,000 tonnes per year.
The original potline (Line 1) used
British Aluminium
British Aluminium was an aluminium production company. It was originally formed as the British Aluminium Company Ltd on 7 May 1894 and was subsequently known as British Alcan Aluminium plc (1982-1996).
History
In the late 1880s and early 1890s ...
Söderberg technology. It
was converted to use
prebake anodes in 1965 and shut down in 1981.
Technology
The smelter currently comprises three potlines of
Kaiser
Kaiser ( ; ) is the title historically used by German and Austrian emperors. In German, the title in principle applies to rulers anywhere in the world above the rank of king (). In English, the word ''kaiser'' is mainly applied to the emperors ...
P-57 reduction cells
[
]
Line 2 and Line 3 were built in the early 1960s. Line 4 was built
in two stages in the early 1980s.
See also
*
Rio Tinto Aluminium
*
Aluminium smelting
Aluminium smelting is the process of extracting aluminium from its oxide, alumina, generally by the Hall-Héroult process. Alumina is extracted from the ore bauxite by means of the Bayer process at an alumina refinery.
This is an electroly ...
*
List of aluminium smelters
This is a list of primary aluminium smelters in the world. Primary production is the process by which alumina is smelted to pure aluminum. Secondary production is the process of recycling aluminum scrap into aluminum that can be used again. Capa ...
References
External links
Rio Tintocorporate web site
Bell Bay in its element as aluminium smelter powers on Bruce Mounster, 14 December 2013, The Mercury.
Industrial buildings in Tasmania
Aluminium smelters in Australia
Alcan
Energy crisis, 2016
1955 establishments in Australia
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