Quebec Awards Electricity Program to Aluminum Smelter

The province of Quebec awarded a 500 megawatt block of specially priced electricity to the 243,000 metric ton Alouette aluminum smelter consortium to assist a proposed $800 million production capacity expansion.

The expansion of the Alouette smelter at Sept-Iles -- a project that includes Montreal's Alcan Inc. -- is expected to be ready for 2005 and would create up top 500 jobs in primary aluminum production and transformation in the Canadian province.