Rusal purchases majority share of EurAllumina refinery

Rusal, a top-three global aluminum producer, announced the successful completion of an agreement with Rio Tinto to purchase a 56.2 percent stake in the EurAllumina alumina refinery in Italy.

The remaining 43.8 percent share of EurAllumina is owned by Glencore. Ownership of the asset will be consolidated under United Company Rusal, when the merger of Rusal, Sual and Glencore's alumina assets is completed next year.

Commenting on the acquisition of the EurAllumina refinery, Alexander Bulygin, Rusal's CEO, said: “The acquisition of this stake is an important step in the consolidation of Euroallumina into United Company Rusal. EurAllumina will provide an additional annual input of 600,000 tons of alumina.”

Rusal provides primary aluminum and value-added casthouse products to customers in 50 countries. Headquartered in Moscow, with operations in nine regions of Russia and 13 countries globally, Rusal now accounts for 75 percent of aluminum production in Russia and 10 percent internationally. Rusal has 47,000 employees and was established in March 2000 through a merger of several largest aluminum smelters and alumina refineries in the CIS.

The EurAllumina alumina refinery is located at Portoscuso, on the south west coast of Sardinia, Italy. It began operations in 1973 and, with a capacity of one million tons, consumes 2.2 million tons of bauxite from the Weipa mine in Queensland, Australia, each year.