The Soviet aluminum industry: recent developments

Auteur :
SHABAD, Th.

Description :
The aluminum industry is unusual in the Soviet Union because if its heavy reliance on imported raw materials. The Soviet Union is well supplied with the cheap hydroelectric power needed for aluminum reduction, but has not identified sufficient domestic reserves of high-grade bauxite. The Soviet planners adopted a policy of relying increasingly on imports of high-grade bauxite as well as alumina, the intermediate product. The construction of a seaboard alumina plant at Nikolayev to process Guinean bauxite into alumina for use at the Sayanogorsk aluminum plant under construction in Siberia represents the latest development under that policy, which saw dependence on imported raw materials for aluminum production rise from 12 percent in 1965 to some 50 percent in 1980. An attempt is made to construct a raw material balance for the Soviet aluminum industry, and the latest developments are reviewed.


Type de document :
Article de périodique

Source :
Soviet geography. Review and translations New York, 1983, vol. 24, n°. 2, p. 89-99, Références bibliographiques : 23 réf.

Date :
1983