• Українська
  • Русский
  • English
Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Aluminum Plant Ready to Modernize Provided It Finds Foreign Investors

16 November, 1999 - 00:00

In spite of being the nation’s aluminum-manufacturing monopolist, ZAP has small production capacities, compared to the exiting standards, and rather ineffective electroplating facilities: the number of man-hours per ton of metal produced is much higher than at Western enterprises. This lowers the competitiveness of Ukrainian aluminum. The world-famous US Keyser Aluminum Company, with which Mr. Bastryha says the Zaporizhzhia enterprise has long- established business ties, agreed to help ZAP to resolve its urgent problems.

It took a group of Americans a few months to assess the options and prepare the final report on how to go about the large-scale modernization of ZAP fixed assets and give a new many-decade lease on life to electroplating (electrolysis) facilities. As Mr. Bastryha recalls, discussion of the Keyser experts’ report by the plant and shop-floor management and chief specialists lasted three days in early November. Project manager Siegfried Prangenberg stressed that, when choosing a technology, they took into consideration ZAP’s unique nature, with due account of ecology and the enterprise’s age.

Keyser offered world-class elegant-looking, simple, and highly productive electrolysis equipment. After studying 24 technological simulation scenarios, the experts finally opted for three. Moreover, the Americans did not dictate their conditions but tried to adapt themselves to existing ones, thus confirming the firm’s credo: to maintain a long-term and trustworthy relationship with a partner.

Investment project attractiveness indices assessed by European methods allow the plant to look forward with optimism, provided, of course, they find the necessary funding. However, a foreign investor is more likely to make a judgment not so much by the fact of cooperation with the world- renowned Keyser as by the dynamic development of ZAP, now working even better than in the best of Soviet times. Electroplating specialists alone, who are still working with outdated equipment and obsolete technologies, have produced this year top grade crude aluminum accounting for 79% of its total output.

ZAP has not only preserved but also modernized its own alumina production, which allowed the enterprise to remain unaffected by the scandal connected with the Mykolayiv Alumina Plant: it did not impact at all on ZAP output figures. The plant is trying, on the basis of raw material production, to launch the output of costly, prestigious, and more highly finished products. For instance, its aluminum-rolling facility, built exclusively at its own expense and commissioned in June, brings in an additional $300 profit for each ton of product sold. It is planned to commission a rolled-billet section to produce foil domestically by the end of this year, and a foil-producing plant by 2001. The latter will mainly supply its products to the food and processing industries.

Rubric: