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Alcoa, Ma'aden produce first Saudi hot metal

December 14, 2012 - 02:00 GMT Location: New York

KEYWORDS: Alcoa , Saudi Arabia , Ma'aden , smelter , rolling mill , aluminium

Alcoa and its Saudi Arabia-based joint venture partner Ma'aden have produced the first hot metal at their aluminium complex on the east coast of the country, a project that allows the Pittsburgh-based company to significantly reduce production costs.

"The smelter gives us the opportunity to push ahead with its strategy for the upstream business of coming down the cost curve," Alcoa chairman and ceo Klaus Kleinfeld said Wednesday in an interview from the complex in Ras Al Khair. "This is the lowest-cost smelter on the planet; it gives us a good bump-up in our competitiveness." The Ma’aden project contributes a 2-percentage point reduction on the refining and smelting cost curves for Alcoa, which plans to move down the cost curve by 3-6% points by the end of 2013 across its smelting facilities. Alcoa has a 25.1% stake in the...

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