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BUSINESS CENTRED DESIGN PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO PLANT CAPACITY MODELLING AND CAPITAL DECISION MAKING

Parrish, J.D., Chatto, C.D. and Crosse, M.C.

Alcan Inc. of Canada has recently approved US$1.3bn capital expenditure to expand the production capacity of the Alcan Gove Alumina Refinery. The plant, located on the Gove Peninsula of Northern Territory (Australia), is presently rated at 1.9Mt/y alumina. The expansion will see alumina production capacity increasing to 3.78Mt/y by 2007.

Prior to committing to this investment, a comprehensive 18-month Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) was conducted. It was recognised early in the DFS that a means of quantifying the interaction between items of equipment in the plant from reliability perspective, as well as unit process performance, was necessary in order to verify that total plant throughput would meet the required overall target production rate.

This paper presents the Business Centred Design approach applied to the capital expenditure decision-making process for the Gove Stage 3 Expansion.