Alunorte shows the way
(May 29, 2002) Deep in the Amazon rain forest of Brazil lies the basis for Norsk Hydros aluminium production Alunorte.
Visitors arrive at Alumina do Norte do Brasil S.A. by boat from Belém, the capital of Pará state. Around 40 kilometers west of the city, surrounded by tropical forest, lies Norsk Hydro’s most important supplier of alumina. In 2001, Alunorte supplied 24 per cent of the alumina required by Norsk Hydro’s wholly and partly owned metal production facilities in Europe.
A vivid description of the Amazon region – famous for its spectacular landscape, flora and fauna – can be found in Alunorte’s corporate brochure. “And in the middle of this magical landscape,” muses the author, “lies Alunorte, the alumina refinery whose operations have attracted much positive international attention.”
And so it has. The alumina refinery in Pará can point to extremely good results, even by international standards. It has considerably higher productivity than its competitors, lower operating costs, and has won awards for its health, safety and environmental performance, including a prestigious prize for the social program “Barcarena of the future.”
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“Alunorte can teach us Norwegians a whole lot about health, safety and environment,” says Harald Martinsen, head of Norsk Hydro Brasil Ltda, adding that he would not hesitate to describe Alunorte as the world’s best-run alumina plant.
In 1999, four years after it went into operation, Alunorte’s alumina production rose from 1.1 million metric tons per year to around 1.5 million tons – almost 30 per cent above its design capacity. In 2003, when the current expansion program has been completed, the plant will produce more than 2.3 million tons a year. In addition to alumina, Alunorte also sells some aluminium hydrate, which is used in the chemicals industry.
Hydro’s 34 per cent stake makes it Alunorte’s second-largest shareholder after Aluvale (Vale do Rio Doce Alumínio S/A), which owns 44 per cent of the company. The remaining shares are held by other Brazilian companies and two in Japan.
According to technical manager Luiz Gustavo Corrêa, there are several reasons why Alunorte has managed to keep its costs at such a comparatively low level.
“Logistics are important. It is a relatively short distance to our raw materials supplier, the bauxite mine at Trombetas, and to Belém. Other advantages include proximity to deepwater docking and the hydro-electric plant at Tucurí,” explains Corrêa.
In March 2002 Alunorte completed 1,050 days without a lost-time injury. The company twice before has received the country’s top national safety awards – Prêmio ABPA in 1998 and Prêmio ABS in 2000.
Spread around the plant there are posters with advice and encouragement: “This is no place for acrobatics!” ... “If you are going to get a good result, you need the right tools” ... “A couple of planks on top of each other does not make scaffolding!”
But it is not the campaigns and the slogans that produce the plant’s achievements.
“It is due to a continuous and systematic effort,” says Corrêa, who points to the company’s safety scheme which includes risk analyses, daily 15-minute safety meetings for all work groups, suggestion boxes and prizes for the teams with good safety records. Perhaps a churrasco – a barbeque – for a team that has done particularly well.
“The company does not cut costs when it comes to safety,” says laboratory technician and safety coordinator Regilce Maria Carvalho Silva.
 "Alunorte can teach us Norwegians a whole lot about health, safety and environment... |
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Her colleague, safety technician Marcelo Cesar Gomes, explains that a responsible attitude toward safety is a condition for employment in the company. But they underline the fact that this is not something they do for their employers: this is something they do for themselves, they say. It is they and their families who pay the price if anything should happen to them.
Corrêa believes there is a clear connection between good environmental and safety records and good production figures. For example, one of the quality control systems which Alunorte uses – 5S (the five senses) – has had a positive effect on safety, he says. And the strong focus on good housekeeping, which among other things means keeping things orderly and well laid out, helps not only to reduce the risk of accidents, but also has a positive effect on operating reliability and quality.
Alunorte and its sister company, the aluminium smelter, Albras, were greenfield sites – literally and figuratively – when they were established in the 1980s and 1990s. Two major industrial facilities, a village, a hydro-electric plant and a port grew up in an area of previously untouched nature.
“Our production process complies with strict environmental standards,” says Corrêa. “We have sophisticated emission control systems to protect our surrounding environment. We are, after all, surrounded by 875 acres of green.”
The major waste product from the production process is red mud. Alunorte uses modern purification technology which will enable the mud to be used as a raw material for the ceramics industry. The company won the Brazilian industrial federation’s Ecology CNI Prize for this piece of innovation in 1999.
However, not all the mud can be used by the ceramics industry. The solution for some of the mud deposits is to use them for tree-planting. “Here we plant a number of different species of trees that are characteristic of the region,” says Corrêa. Alunorte and its neighbor Albras consider themselves to be sister companies. They were planned at the same time, went into production within 10 years of each other and share a number of support functions, including transport, warehousing and IT.
There are many things that bind the two companies together. Alumina, which is the raw material for the production of aluminium, is supplied by the alumina refinery Alunorte to the smelter Albras, which produces more than 400,000 tons of aluminium products each year for customers at home and abroad.
This is a substantial increase in output compared with the 320,000 tons which was the plant’s design capacity when it went into production in 1985 – an increase that has been achieved with only a modest additional investment. Total investments in Albras amount to $1.5 billion.
The company’s largest shareholder is Aluvale (Vale do Rio Doce Alumínio S/A), a subsidiary of CVRD – the world’s largest producer of iron ore. Aluvale also owns 40 per cent of the bauxite company MRN (Mineracão Rio do Norte S.A). Norsk Hydro, which owns 34 per cent of Alunorte, has no stake in Albras, but in 2000 signed a 10-year contract with the company for the supply of primary aluminium.
In addition, Norsk Hydro will provide technical assistance for five years.
Albras is today the largest smelter in Latin America, and has not only considerably increased its production capacity. Aluminium carrying the Albras logo is renowned for its purity – between 99.7 and 99.9 pure aluminium.
The company has received a number of national and international awards. Included in its long list of honors are prizes for productivity and quality, as well as health, safety and the environment.
The International Aluminium Institute (IAI) has also named Albras as an international benchmark for safety. In 1999 and 2000 the company was included in the Brazilian magazine Exame’s list of the best companies to work for.
The company has a lot to be proud of, and is unafraid to show it. “We are simply top of the class,” smiles Paulo Ivan Faria Campo, head of corporate communications at Albras.
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