United Company RUSAL and HydroOGK started the construction of Boguchanskiy aluminum plant; the future facility will be capable of producing 600,000 tons of aluminum a year and is going to hit Russia’s top five largest aluminum plants. The project requires over $2.3 billion worth of investments. The plant is expected to be launched in December 2009 and to reach its full capacity in the second quarter of 2011.

According to the two companies’ press release, the new plant will be part of a large Boguchanskiy power engineering and metallurgical enterprise comprising an electrolysis shop, a foundry, an anodic unit, and electricity-generating and maintenance facilities.

‘Boguchanskiy aluminum plant is one of the five enterprises currently built by United Company RUSAL throughout Russia. I’m positive we’ll be able to use the experience we obtained while working on Khakas aluminum plant in this project,’ RUSAL chairman Alexander Bulygin says.

‘This is the first time HydroOGK is taking part in the construction of an aluminum plant. Our company is to become the main consumer of electricity supplied by Boguchanskaya power station, and the whole project will greatly facilitate the development of Lower Angara Region,’ HydroOGK chairman Vyacheslav Sinyugin reports.

The symbolic laying of the foundation stone took place in the village of Tayozhniy, Boguchanskiy district; the ceremony was attended by Governor of Krasnoyarsk Territory Alexander Khloponin, RAO UES of Russia chairman Anatoly Chubais, RUSAL BOD member Oleg Deripaska, RUSAL chairman Alexander Bulygin, and HydroOGK chairman Vyacheslav Sinyugin.