Tiwai Point lies at the entrance to Bluff Harbour on the southern coast of the South Island of New Zealand. A spit which extends from the western end of the Awarua Plain, it lies between Awarua Bay to the north and Foveaux Strait to the south. It is famous for the Tiwai Point Aluminium Smelter, one of the largest industrial facilities in New Zealand.[1]
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The Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is owned by New Zealand Aluminium Smelters Limited, which is owned by by Rio Tinto Aluminium (RTA) (79.36%) and the Sumitomo Chemical Company (20.64%).[2] Ryan Cavanagh is the current General Manager Operations (as of 2010).
The Tiwai Point smelter was opened in 1971. It is one of the 20 largest aluminium smelters in the world and, according to Rio Tinto Alcan, it provides NZ$3.65 billion worth of economic benefit to the New Zealand economy.[3] It produces the world's highest purity primary (i.e. directly refined made from alumina ore) aluminium. The ore is mostly imported from Australia, while the finished product mostly goes to Japan.[3]
The smelter currently consists of 3 lines of P69 technology cells, with 208 cells each (i.e. 624 total), and one line of 48 CD200 technology cells. In 2009, approximately 750 full time personnel were employed, and 120 contractors.[3] Metal production was 271,902 tonnes.[3] The third P69 Line was built in the early 1980s as part of Muldoon government's "Think Big" projects.
The smelter uses up to 610MW of electricity which is mostly supplied by the hydroelectric Manapouri Power Station. The perceived reliability of power from Manapouri played a major role in the choice of building the aluminium smelter in Southland,[3] with both the power plant and the smelter having been constructed as a joint project. The facility is the largest electricity consumer in New Zealand, and uses approximately one third of the total power of the South Island and 15% of the total power countrywide. New Zealand Aluminium Smelters has a contract for electricity supply with Meridian Energy for the continuous supply of 572 megawatts for the period 2013 to 2030.[2]
In 2007, Tom Campbell, the chief executive of majority owner Rio Tinto Aluminium NZ, said that the smelter was amongst the top 5% of the world's 250 aluminium smelters worldwide in terms of low emissions.[2] In 2007, 1.97 tonnes of carbon dioxide was released for every tonne of aluminium produced.[4] In 2008, Rio Tinto Aluminium was declared the second worst transnational corporation in New Zealand, in the Roger Awards for the Worst Transnational Corporation Operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This was due to its threat to close the smelter if the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme went ahead.[5] [6] The smelter emitted about 600,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases (measured as carbon dioxide equivalents) in 2010.[7]
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