A new aluminum smelter with annual capacity of 503,000 tons is expected to be built in Tajikistan. The new aluminum plant will also be constructed in Tursunzoda, where Tajik aluminum smelter operates.
The Tajik Aluminum Company (TALCO) plans to increase aluminum production to 1 million tons within the next few years. In order to put these ambitious plans into practice, TALCO will begin construction of a new aluminum smelter and fully modernize the functioning aluminum smelter next year.
An agreement on construction of a new aluminum smelter in Tursunzoda was reached between TALCO and China’s Yunnan Company during Tajik President Emomali Rahmon’s visit to China in later August this year, Igor Sattarov, a spokesman for TALCO, told reporters in Dushanbe on November 17.
According to him, the Chinese company has already conducted the preliminary feasibility study and is currently working on development of the project.
The new aluminum plant’s structure will include engineering foundry and anode production, Sattarov noted.
The estimated budget for construction of the new aluminum plant is 1.6 billion U.S. dollars. The construction of the plant is expected to commence in February next year and it will be finished in one and a half years.
“The new aluminum plant will create 1,100 new jobs,” said the TALCO spokesman. “Electrolysis baths of the new aluminum plant will allow considerably saving electricity and the main types of raw materials: alumina, cryolite, aluminum fluoride as well as anodes.”
According to him, they began replacing old electrolysis baths at the functioning aluminum plant in 2016, and to-date, more than 90 percent of them have been replaced.
Sattarov says the plant has an opportunity to launch additional 98 electrolysis baths.
Meanwhile, TALCO has produced only 76,000 tons of primary aluminum over the first three quarters (January-September) of this year, which was 27,000 tons less than in the same period last year.
The Tajik Aluminum Company (TALCO) is one of the ten largest aluminum smelters in the world. It consumes more than 30 percent of the country’s electrical power. TALCO is wholly owned by the Tajik government. Tajikistan does not mine alumina but imports the raw material through tolling arrangements.
Construction of the Tajik aluminum plant (TadAZ) began in 1972, and the first pouring of aluminum took place on March 31, 1975. THz Tajik aluminum smelter has a rated capacity of 517,000 tons of primary aluminum per year. On April 3, 2007, TadAZ was officially renamed to TALCO – Tajik Aluminum Company.
