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April 9, 2009
JAMALCO HITS PRODUCTION RECORD!
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Bauxite/Alumina Company Jamalco is today celebrating the best quarterly performance in the Company’s fifty-year history; and is all set to reclaim its position as one of Alcoa’s most cost efficient refineries. This at a time when the world’s aluminium industry buckles under the weight of a global economic meltdown.
Figures released today by Alcoa’s Latin America and the Caribbean Business Unit revealed that for the first quarter of 2009, Jamalco’s Clarendon based refinery in which the Government of Jamaica has a 45% stake, achieved an average digester and calciner output of some 3,800 tons of alumina per day. This means that the plant is currently operating at near its peak capacity.
This production record was accompanied by a dramatic rise in the efficiency of the refinery; assisted by a significantly better than projected performance in the cost of energy, caustic consumption and bauxite recovery. These combined factors have led to a sharp reduction in the overall Cost of Alumina Produced (CAP) to within US$200.00 per ton; down from a CAP in excess of US$300.00 per ton last year. This makes Jamalco now more competitive with Alcoa’s most efficient refineries in Brazil and Australia.
Jamalco’s first quarter performance has propelled the Company to the number one position of all the Alcoa alumina refineries in Latin America and the Caribbean in terms of cost, and second only to the Australian refineries.
Managing Director Jerome Maxwell says Jamalco’s first quarter performance underscores the Company’s determination to be the standard bearer of the regional bauxite/alumina industry. He attributes the results to a year-long focus on stabilizing the operations and returning Jamalco to its pride of place as one of Alcoa’s most efficient alumina refineries. This process, he added, was driven by teamwork, employee engagement and a carefully executed programme of process re-engineering and systems integration.
Jamalco’s Rocky Point port facilities were destroyed by Hurricanes Ivan and Dean, while an islandwide power outage in January 2008 crippled the Company’s production capacity for a substantial part of the year.
This latest achievement comes on the heels of another milestone performance last December, when Jamalco employees recorded four million man hours without a lost work day.
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