Sohar Aluminium on track for hot metal target

SOHAR: SOHAR Aluminium is on track to achieve its first hot metal production in the first half of 2008, now that a new cathode sealing facility is in full operation at the Sohar smelter site.

The facility, operated by contractor Cape East with expertise supplied by Sohar Aluminium, started up in late May and must produce 200 sealed ‘cathode blocks’ every week in order to create the 7200 blocks needed for lining the reduction cells. The cathode blocks are used in each cell (pot) to transfer the current from the cell to the main bus-bars and each ‘pot’ requires 20 cathodes.

The cathode sealing facility will operate 24 hours a day, six days a week, for the next 10 months to meet the target date next year. On average, it will produce 30 cathode blocks a day.

Acting General Manager – Operations, Hameed Najim, said it was vital that the cathode sealing began 12 months ahead of scheduled production. “Without the completed sealed cathodes we would not be able to achieve our target date for producing our first hot metal,” he said.

A cathode block is one of three integral ingredients needed for the smelting of alumina to make aluminium. The other ingredients are electricity and an anode.

Electricity is transferred via the anode through a liquid bath to the cathode, then through the bus-bar to the adjacent pot. Each pot (cell) has 20 cathode blocks which form the bed for the aluminum liquid that is produced as a result of the reduction process taking place in each cell.

The Sohar Aluminium Smelter Project is located approximately 12 kilometres inland from Sohar. Using Alcan/AP smelter technology, this $1.4 billion greenfield project involves the construction of a single 360 pot AP35G aluminium smelter potline with a capacity of approximately 350,000 metric tons per year, a carbon anode plant, a metal casting facility, and a port facility for product storage and ship loading and unloading. When complete, the potline will be the largest single potline in the world.
Sohar Aluminium’s shareholders are Oman Oil Company, Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority, and Alcan. The company was established in September 2004 to construct and operate a single AP35 potline aluminium smelter with an associated power plant.

The smelter is targeted to start its first production of hot metal in 2008.