TURKEY: Three bid for aluminium smelter upgrade

26 September 1997
NEWS

State mining agency Etibank is evaluating three bids for a project estimated to cost $315 million to upgrade and expand its Seydisehir aluminium smelter (MEED 25:7:97). The bids have been submitted by the US' Glencore International and ICF Kaiser International, and South Korea's Daewoo Corporation, project sources say.

Evaluation, first on technical grounds and then on price, will take about four months, the sources say. Bids are accompanied by financing offers. Etibank eventually aims to have a share ranging from 15-49 per cent in the joint venture, while foreign investors will be limited to 85 per cent, say the sources.

The project will expand the plant's capacity to about 100,000 tonnes a year, from 60,000 tonnes at present. It calls for the conversion of the plant's 248 pots to a pre-baked, anode method instead of the present Sonderberg anode system. Nearby bauxite mines producing about 310,000 tonnes annually will also be leased by Etibank to the joint venture.

The successful bidder will also have to improve the smelter's power supply, either through the construction of an adjacent power plant, or from the national grid, the sources add.

Etibank revived the project in autumn 1996, after it had languished due to financial difficulties since first being proposed in 1992.

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