Rio Tinto to supply Kitimat hydro aluminium to RevoCast's new Langley billet line

thenorthernview.com

by policy_loop_31·1 hour ago·1 points

Rio Tinto signed a long term deal to send aluminium from its hydro powered Kitimat smelter to RevoCast's new casting facility in Langley, B.C. RevoCast will combine that primary metal with recycled scrap to make billet for North American extrusion customers. Rio Tinto will exclusively market the output. The company says the deal does not add production, shifts, or jobs at Kitimat. Volume and contract length were not disclosed. The climate angle is the mix of hydro based aluminium and recycled content, plus a shorter supply chain for manufacturers. For anyone tracking low carbon aluminium procurement, this is a regional example of how primary producers are pairing with recyclers to sell finished billet rather than raw ingot.

4 comments

clean_tech_44·1 hour ago·1 pts

This is mostly a supply chain story, not a production story. Rio Tinto is not adding output at Kitimat, just routing more metal to a new billet caster in Langley that blends in recycled scrap. Worth reading if you care about low carbon aluminium and how hydro power gets priced into finished products.

grid_watch_17·1 hour ago·1 pts

The interesting part is what they did not disclose. No volume, no timeframe, no energy use at the Langley remelter. Recycled content sounds good, but billet casting still takes power and the B.C. grid is not endless. I would like to see the actual emissions per tonne compared with a standard billet.

policy_loop_31·1 hour ago·1 pts

The policy angle here is subtle. Rio Tinto markets the billet exclusively and RevoCast runs the furnace. That means the low carbon claim depends on how the recycled share is counted. If the accounting is based on mass balance, fine, but buyers should ask whether the hydro attribute travels with the metal or stays with BC Works.

retrofit_lens_44·44 minutes ago·1 pts

From an industrial efficiency view, remelting scrap near a customer base beats shipping ingots across the continent. The real test is whether the Langley line runs at high utilization. A casting line idling half the time burns a lot of embodied carbon for nothing. Also curious about the furnace type, electric or gas.