Alouette aluminumie will invest up to 1.5 billion to modernize its facilities, confirmed Wednesday to The press A source aware of the file.
Prime Minister François Legault will be at Sept-Îles on Friday to confirm the news, initially relayed by the American media Bloomberg. The investment comes from private funding sources, according to the same source, which is not authorized to speak publicly about the file.
Alouette aluminum, which employs 950 people in Sept-Îles and which partly belongs to Rio Tinto, also concluded an electricity supply agreement with Hydro-Québec.
Prime Minister François Legault had already sold the wick on this project last February, followed by Marc Tanguay, who was then head of the acting official opposition. “The president of Alouette said to me: we would be ready to invest a billion in the factory if you are able to review the price of electricity,” he said.
In an interview with The press In February, the president and chief executive officer of Alouette, Claude Gosselin, actually mentioned being in negotiations about his electricity supply contract which ended in 2029, and being developing a modernization and decarbonation plan. This one would go out over a period of about 10 years, which would lead around 2035, depending on the date of start of the work.
Recall that Hydro-Québec leads an action plan, one of the objectives of which is to add 60 TWh, between 8000 and 9000 megawatts (MW) of additional power, to its network by 2035.
Challenges related to customs duties
In June 2024, the government announced in a press release that Alouette Aluminage was one of the 11 companies selected to benefit from a power connection of 5 MW or more. Since February 15, 2023, the government must select each project that exceeds this threshold, while before it was obliged to serve any project of less than 50 MW.
The investment announcement at Aluminerie Alouette occurs at a time when industry meets challenges related to the taxation of customs duties of 50 % of the US government on aluminum imports.
Last winter, Alouette exported 90 % of its production in the United States, but already said he was ready to turn to Europe if necessary. In the past, the majority of its production was sent to the Old Continent.
With the collaboration of Julien Arsenault, The press
