Aughinish Alumina

Aughinish Alumina is one of the most technologically advanced and energy efficient facilities worlwide.

Europe’s largest alumina refinery and a major alumina asset of RUSAL.

One of the world’s most energy efficient alumina refineries.

The facility infrastructure includes a deepwater terminal on the Shannon estuary that facilitates efficient deliveries to European smelters.

The production was launched in 1983.


Products
Alumina, alumina hydrate
Annual production capacity
1,990,000 tonnes of hydrate 1,915,000 tonnes of alumina
Production technology
The Bayer process
Development
In 2012 the refinery saw an increase in its annual production capacity up to 1.99 million tonnes of alumina. In 2014 two new Gas Boilers were installed in the plant, completing the move to all Natural Gas while the National Parks and Wildlife Service found that Aughinish has the best Semi-Natural Grasslands in Ireland. In the last 4 years Aughinish has successfully operated a demonstration cell and carried out an extensive study programme investigating the use of a constructed wetland to treat residue leachate. This programme is sponsored by RUSAL and the International Aluminium Association. In 2015 Aughinish undertook the conversion of a redundant Heavy Fuel Oil Tank to a caustic storage tank. This allows Aughinish to receive much larger caustic ships from North America, reducing the number of ships at the port and reducing costs. In 2017 a new unloader was put into operation. The old unloader has been overhauled and is used as a replacement during maintenance work on the new equipment. A sequential cascade thickener was put into operation in 2018.
Certificates
ISO 14001 (environmental management standard)

ISO 9001 (quality management standard)

ISRS (health and safety management standard)

Industrial Emissions Licence from Ireland's Environment Protection Agency

ISO50001 (international energy standard) 
Headcount
460