Major aluminum producers began to consider the idea of building a smelter at Sept-Îles as early as the 1970s. With the creation in 1985 of a new deep-water terminal at Pointe-Noire, the idea took a more tangible shape.
In 1987, at the initiative of Quebec’s Société générale de financement (SGF), an international consortium was created with a view to building an aluminum smelter somewhere in Quebec. Thanks to its deep-water port, qualified manpower and proximity to major power grids, Sept-Îles was the obvious choice.
The creation of Aluminerie Alouette in Sept-Îles was officially announced on September 1, 1989. The smelter was built in less than three years and produced its first tonne of “grey gold” in June 1992.
Since then our Company has undergone a major expansion. Phase II got under way in September 2002 and was completed in May 2005. It was Quebec’s largest private construction project and has become a world reference in terms of aluminum smelter construction and start-up. Thanks to this $1.4 billion investment, we increased our annual production from 245,000 to over 575,000 tonnes per year and created 393 new permanent jobs.
With over 900 employees and an annual production capacity of 630,000 tonnes of primary aluminium, Alouette is the largest private employer in Sept-Îles and the largest aluminium smelter in the Americas.
The company is also certified ISO 9001 : 2015 (quality), ISO 14001 : 2015 (environment), ISO 45001 : 2018 (occupational health and safety management systems), CAN/BNQ 9700-800 : 2020 (prevention, promotion and organizational practices for health in workplace), PALA (accreditation programme for analysis laboratories), ASI - Performance : 2022 (aluminium value chain) and ASI - Chain of Custody Standard : 2017.
Today, the Aluminerie Alouette consortium is made up of the following five shareholders: AMAG Austria Metall AG (Austria, 20%), Hydro Aluminium (Norway, 20%), Investissement Québec (Canada, 6.67%), Marubeni Metals & Minerals (Japan, 13.33%) and Rio Tinto (Canada, 40%).
