Prime-Tass English-language Business Newswire
October 26, 2006 Thursday 1:58 PM EET

RusAl re-launches foil plant in Armenia after $70 mln upgrade

Russia’s largest aluminum producer RusAl has put its foil production
plant in Armenia, RusAl Armenal, back into operation after completing
extensive modernization at a cost of U.S. $70 million, the company
said in a press release Thursday.

Germany’s Achenbach acted as a general contractor for the
modernization project, which started in 2004 and took 23 months to
complete, the company said.

The modernization program has improved the quality of products
produced at the plant and cut expenses significantly. The plant’s
preparatory rolling mill has also been fully modernized and is now
equipped with monitoring tools and a process control system, the
company said.

RusAl Armenal will produce 25,000 tonnes of foil per year, the
company said. In 2003 the plant produced 10,500 tonnes of foil.

The plant is expected to operate at full capacity in mid-2007 and
become one of the major aluminum foil producers in the Commonwealth
of Independent States (CIS), RusAl said.

RusAl said that the plant’s share in the total volume of foil
production in the CIS would amount to 12% and its main sales markets
would be Europe and the U.S.

Armenal is the only aluminum foil production facility in the Caucasus
and Central Asia and has already received enough orders to operate at
full capacity. RusAl is considering the possibility of expanding the
plant’s production capacity up to 40,000 tonnes of products per year,
the company said.

RusAl, which is the third largest aluminum producer in the world,
accounts for 75% of Russia’s primary aluminum output and 10% of the
global primary aluminum production. In 2005 the holding’s output
totaled 2.714 million tonnes, 1.6% up on the year.