Rusal to demerge its higher carbon assets and change name

19th May 2021 By: Reuters

Rusal to demerge its higher carbon assets and change name

MOSCOW – Russian aluminium producer Rusal said on Wednesday that it would demerge its higher carbon assets into a separate company as part of its goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and will change its own name to AL+ as part of the process.

Hong-Kong listed Rusal is the world's largest aluminium producer outside China which mainly uses hydropower for its production.

AL+ will keep six aluminium smelters, six alumina smelters, as well as the main mining assets and production of aluminium foil and car wheels in Russia and abroad to focus on the production of low-carbon aluminium.

The assets it separates - five older aluminium smelters, four alumina refineries and two bauxite mines in Russia - will form a new company, yet to be named, which will focus on upgrading its technology.

The restructuring will leave three of four of those smelters facing a ten-year technology upgrade, which will start this year and for which investments will peak in 2022 to 2027, within the new separate company.

En+, Rusal's parent company, said in a statement that the new separate company should be a public one, listed in Moscow.

It also wants shares of the new company to be allocated between all Rusal shareholders, but the final decision has yet to be made.