Threat to smelter?

Press, 20 April 1982, Page 3

Threat to smelter?

PA Wellington A process for manufacturing aluminium without using electricity as an energy source is being developed by a Japanese company. The process, which has yet to be proved commercially, could revolutionise the aluminium industry world-wide. Major aluminium companies, including the French firm, Pechiney, have already approached the Japanese company and asked whether the break-through will render obsolete, smelters worth thousands of millions of dollars being built in Australia. A spokesman for the Min-

ister of Energy (Mr Birch) said the Minister had taken an interest in reports of the process but considered that it had no application to New Zealand at this stage. It did not alter Government plans in respect of allowing a second aluminium smelter to be established in New Zealand using Clutha hydro-elec-tricity power. The process was at least 10 years away from being introduced commercially, and had yet to be proven. The process, developed by Mitsui of Japan, reduces comparatively low-grade clay or bauxite by using coke in a blast furnace, creating a

crude alloy that can be refined into pure aluminium by metal extracting and other processes, using no electricity. Experiments had begun about 1975 and Mitsui had patented the process throughout the world. The entire Japanese aluminium industry had been invited to join in at the experimental stage and share in any proven benefits, and a Japanese Government bureau had been set up to develop the process. The process could remove the advantage of cheap electricity in the production of aluminium.