‘Special Alumina’ Production Begins at Eti Alüminyum

Eti Aluminum, Turkey's sole primary aluminum producer, continues significant investments to reduce Turkey's import dependency and provide domestic solutions to strategic sectors.

Prioritizing the domestic production of imported products and conducting intensive R&D activities for this purpose, Eti Aluminum completed its investment in 'specialty alumina' with a structure that does not melt even at 2,000 degrees and has a wide range of applications such as ceramics, defense industry, and thermal insulation material production. The operational facility has an annual capacity of 40,000 tonnes.

The specialty alumina facility of Eti Aluminum, which meets 10 percent of Turkey's aluminum needs under the Cengiz Holding umbrella, has begun operations. Specialty alumina, which until now was supplied only through imports, can now be produced in Turkey with Eti Aluminum's investment. In addition to supplying specialty alumina products needed by the refractory, ceramics, polishing, thermal insulation, paints and glass sectors, Eti Aluminum, which adds qualified alumina products with an important place in the defense industry, will be able to produce super-fine particle-sized and high-purity products with this investment.

'Will meet 50 percent of domestic market initially'
Mehmet Arkan, General Director of Eti Aluminum, emphasizing the importance of domestic raw material production, stated: "We are pleased to begin production following long-term R&D studies in our specialty alumina facility, which we launched with the aim of becoming a supplier company and for which we made the investment decision in 2016. In specialty alumina, which is being produced domestically for the first time in Turkey and has an annual market of 25,000 tonnes, we are starting with an annual production of 14,000 tonnes initially. We plan to meet 50 percent of the current market with this and export the remaining portion. With the operation of new mills, we will increase our production to 40,000 tonnes and reach a production volume that will meet the entire market."

Arkan, noting that specialty alumina products have strategic importance in the defense industry, continued: "In line with the increasing domestic production initiatives in the defense industry in recent years, the need for alumina products with high technical characteristics has further increased. In particular, we are realizing the domestic production of specialty alumina products used in ballistic applications with super-fine particle size, high alpha content, low specific surface area and high purity degree with this project. With this production, which is revolutionary in terms of the defense industry, we at Eti Aluminum are aware of our responsibility in the matter of raw material supply security."

Four different specialty aluminas coming
Eti Aluminum, aiming to produce different specialty aluminas for the different needs of different sectors, is continuing R&D activities for the production of 'low-soda alumina', 'reactive alumina', 'bimodal' and 'multimodal alumina' products. With its new products, Eti Aluminum is making significant contributions to closing Turkey's current account deficit, and with its new investments, it is also supporting employment in the region.