Alouette Aluminium Smelter to Expand

The owners of the Alouette aluminium smelter in Sept-Iles, Quebec (Alcan Inc. 40 per cent, Austria Metall AG 20 per cent, Hydro Aluminium 20 per cent, Société générale de financement du Québec (SGF) 13.33 per cent, and Marubeni Corporation 6.67 per cent) approved, on September 27, 2002, a $1.41 billion project for expansion, by 307,000 tonnes per year, bringing its production capacity up to 550,000 tonnes of primary aluminium per year. After completion, the Alouette smelter will be the largest aluminium smelter in the Americas. Construction started in the fall of 2002 and first production of aluminium by the expanded facilities is scheduled for February 2005, while the plant will be completed in the fall of 2005. The owners committee appointed the smelter’s operating company, Aluminerie Alouette Inc. (AAI), to undertake the project on its behalf.

AAI was represented by Desjardins Ducharme Stein Monast, with a team comprised of Gérard Coulombe, Catherine Papineau, Francis Desmarais and Véronik Bonneville-Pesant (corporate), Martin Rolland and Pascale Dionne (financing), Christian Drapeau (real estate), Odette Nadon (environment) and Claude Gravel (labour).

The owners committee and AAI retained Jean Lamothe and Nicole Nobert of Stikeman Elliott and Andre Vautour of Desjardins Ducharme Stein Monast, as special counsel to negotiate certain material contracts relating to the project expansion, as well as Jean Carrier and Geneviève Lavertu of Stikeman Elliott for the negotiation of the 500 megawatt power purchase agreement.
Alcan was represented in-house by Pierre Cossette, director, legal affairs, Alcan Primary Metal Group, who also participated in the negotiation of the power purchase agreement. Austria Metall was represented by Stephen Weinstein of Weinstein & Associates in Montreal. Hydro Aluminium was represented by in-house counsel Terrance Conley and Anders Daae, and by McCarthy Tétrault LLP with a team comprised of John Sullivan and Stéphanie Gilcher (corporate and real estate).

SGF was represented by in-house counsel Bertrand Thibert, assisted by the Desjardins Ducharme Stein Monast team. Marubeni was represented by Stikeman Elliott with a team comprised of Erik Richer La Fleche and Geneviève Lavertu (corporate) and Caroline Émond (real estate).