Aluminium Bahrain's (Alba) board of directors has approved spending on 11 projects including plans to increase its coke calcining plant capacity from 450,000 tonnes to 600,000 tonnes per year to maximise export revenue.

The company will also be upgrading casting facilities in the casthouse to improve efficiency; introduce a new pot removal crane system for Lines 1 to 3 to raise pot relining efficiency and increase hot metal production levels, and automate the monitoring of environmental emissions from the reduction lines.

The board, chaired by Bahrain's Oil Minister and Alba chairman Shaikh Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa, also expressed satisfaction with the company's performance in 2002. Members said the company succeeded in meeting the objectives of its new five-year business plan and made progress in the Line 5 expansion project.

"Alba has made an extremely positive start to achieving the targets of its five-year business plan, which will help the company sustain its contribution to the economy of Bahrain well into the future," said Shaikh Isa.

"Our business plan focuses on the five key areas of safety, people, environment, cost and productivity and last year saw Alba make great strides forward in these areas. As for the $1.7 billion Line 5 expansion which will make the smelter the largest in the world outside of Eastern Europe, many of the essential elements are already in place. Originally set to be a 260,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) potline, Alba's management was able to improve on this by increasing the capacity to 307,000tpa whilst remaining within the original approved budget."

The Line 5 project, said Shaikh Isa, would have significant benefits for Bahrain and increase Alba's contribution to the economy from $200 million to $300 million per annum.

Company chief executive Bruce Hall said construction work on the Potline 5 project would begin very soon.

"The endeavours of our employees helped the company produce 517,000 tonnes of hot metal last year - more than 7,500 tonnes above the plan," he said.

"Metal purity remained at its usual high level of 99.88 per cent. The capital expenditure projects will help us to further improve productivity and the environmental performance of the plant this year."