The Profits

Proudly holding its own at the downtown corners of Stanley and Sherbrooke Streets in the heart of Montreal’s busy business district sits a small, relatively non-descript building surrounded by towering glass structures and an ever-present stream of traffic.

Passersby give little notice to the 115-year-old structure because after all, it’s been there so long that it’s now just a part of the landscape. In other words, it’s taken for granted as being just another old building that’s been there seemingly forever.

And in many ways that’s true, but to Rio Tinto Alcan, the historic Atholstan Mansion, built in 1885, is far more than a smallish old building sitting in the shadows of huge, steel and glass structures.

In fact, the Atholstan Mansion is the cornerstone, literally, to world headquarters, and one of four structures that have been carefully, and cleverly, connected to create one of the most complex, yet highly functional business centres of its kind in the world.

As already mentioned, the Montreal office comprises the Atholstan Mansion, built by the founder of the Montreal Star, Lord Atholstan; the Beique House, built in 1893 and owned by the grandfather of former Alcan President, Paul Lehman; the 11-storey Berkley Hotel, built in 1928; and behind the older buildings, a modern aluminum and glass office tower, named after the Davis family who started the commercial aluminum industry in North America some 100 years ago.

It’s from these four buildings that Rio Tinto Alcan, with some 8000 employees spread across Canada, operates one of the most prosperous and diversified companies in the country. In fact, in addition to producing approximately 30 million tonnes of bauxite, 9 million tonnes of alumina and 4 million tonnes of aluminum a year, the company is also an industry leader in aluminum production technology and self-generating energy, particularly hydroelectric power.

As part of the company’s business savvy, 94 per cent of its energy supply for its smelter power requirements is secured on a long-term basis, with 64 per cent coming from hydroelectricity and 11 per cent from nuclear energy. This approach to self sustainability gives the company a competitive advantage because as all mining companies know, getting “power to the pit” is one of the greatest operating expenses.

Six wholly owned power stations in Quebec comprise a generation capacity of 2,919 MW with a related water management system of dams, reservoirs and catchment areas that cover an area of 73,800 sq km.

The company-owned generating stations supply Rio Tinto Alcan with 90 per cent of its local electricity needs in Quebec, with the remaining 10 per cent purchases from the local public power utility. In British Columbia, the wholly owned Kewmano Power Station generates 896 MW of hydroelectric power primarily for the nearby Kitimat smelter.

Rio Tinto Alcan operates one alumina refinery in Canada, the Vaudreuil Works in Jonquiere, Quebec, with an annual production of about 1.5 million tonnes of alumina and specialty chemicals annually.

Vaudreuil Works is Canada’s largest inorganic chemicals centre, producing bauxite from a number of countries including Brazil, Ghana and Australia. Most of the alumina produced (about 90 per cent) is smelter grade for further processing into primary aluminum, while the remainder is transformed into chemical products such as commercial aluminas, aluminum fluoride and commercial hydrates.

Being one of the largest producers of aluminum products in the world requires a support mechanism that goes far beyond the refinery and to help ensure that its products reach its worldwide customers, Rio Tinto Alcan also operates its own port serving the following facilities: Vaudreuil, Arvida, Grande-Baie, Laterriere and Alma. Transported raw materials include bauxite, alumina, green coke, fuel oil, caustic soda, fluorspar and calcined coke.

The company also owns the Roberval- Saguenay Railway and operates 11 railcars on 143 km of track used to transport the materials mentioned above to the port.

As mentioned earlier, Rio Tinto Alcan is “prosperous and diversified” and its ‘diversity’ is what truly sets the company apart from many others in the mining community.

One example of this is the company’s Arvida Research and Development Centre (ARDC), located in Jonquiere, Quebec, a centre of a regional network where more than 1 million tonnes of aluminum are produced and transformed annually. ARDC works alongside other Rio Tinto Alcan research facilities in France and Australia and also maintains a critical network of external partners that include universities, customers, equipment manufacturers and specialist firms.

Through ARDC, Rio Tinto Alcan develops new techniques in the treatment of molten aluminum, castings and recycling, it fabricates secondary products, creates environmental technologies and develops analytical technologies and worldwide quality assurance programs.

From its Dubuc Works in Chicoutimi, Quebec, the company makes custom castings from various metal matrix composites and the facility is also a development hub for new products. At its Alesa Technologies centre in Alesa, Quebec, Rio Tinto Alcan has set up a division that specializes in the engineering, manufacturing and installation of materials handling equipment for a wide variety of applications and markets. This includes port equipment and transportation or distribution systems with automated process controls.

When it comes to investing money on technology, Rio Tinto Alcan never shies away and in June 2008, the company inaugurated its US$225 million industrial scale spent potlining treatment plant in Saquenay, Quebec.

Spent potlining is a material that is removed periodically from the electrolytric cells used to produce aluminum. The proprietary process transforms the waste into inert material and also produces certain by-products that can be reused in alumina refining operations.

This unique facility uses a Low Caustic Liming and Leaching (LCLL) process to treat approximately 80,000 tonnes of spent potlining a year. The process was developed at the the company’s ARDC division.

As already mentioned, Rio Tinto Alcan is a leader when it comes to aluminum and its products but the company is also a forerunner when it comes to getting involved with the communities where it works.

The creation of the Rio Tinto Alcan Canada Fund in 2008 supports such events like the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal, the Montreal Neurological Institute, the Montreal Planetarium and numerous other activities across Canada.

That little building at the corners of Stanley and Sherbrooke Streets in downtown Montreal may not look like much to passersby but what goes on behind its walls and the decisions made insofar as Rio Tinto Alcan in Canada is concerned are huge!

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