The construction on Nhan Co Alumina Plant Project in Dak Nong province commenced in February 2010 and the time for calculating the construction progress started from October 2010. According to the pledged schedule, the plant would be completed and put into operation after 24 months of construction. However, after more than three and a half years behind schedule, this project has not been completed yet.
Plan broken by contractors
According to the Vietnam National Coal, Mineral Industries Holding Corporation Limited (Vinacomin), there are many causes of this lateness. Weather conditions in Dak Nong were unfavourable. High rainfall slowed down the construction progress. In addition, when the project was kicked off, power outages occurred frequently. Then, the company had to work with power suppliers and obtained a maximum priority. But nevertheless, power was not always stable. Furthermore, the Government requested the temporary suspension for reassessment of economic efficiency of the project, thus taking more time of construction.
Specially, in November 2015 two boilers exploded while building materials were being dried because contractors bought unguaranteed materials from China. When concrete was dried at a temperature of 3,500 degree Celsius, it melted away, resulting in the incident. Chinese contractors were fully responsible for this. To ensure work quality, after the incident, Vinacomin - Dak Nong Aluminium Company worked in detail with two main Chinese contractors and agreed to hire two Vietnamese subcontractors to undertake this work.
Vinacomin said that the project does not lack funds since the group arranged capital source for it, especially with low-rate loans from Japan. To date, Vinacomin immediately arranged payment for completed items.
Currently, Nhan Co Alumina Production Plant Project is being quickly constructed in order to test-run on August 30, 2016 and start official production in the fourth quarter of 2016.
Contributions to the local economy
This is one of major driving projects expected to boost local socioeconomic growth and ensure national security and defence in the Central Highlands in particular and in the country in general. Tan Rai and Nhan Co aluminium bauxite projects will create huge industrial production value for the province. They will help restructure the local labour force, as a part will move to industrial sectors and a part will move to services sectors, thus pushing other sectors to develop as well. Infrastructure built will serve both the projects and local people.
The two alumina projects are expected to contribute VND19 trillion to the province's GDP a year, 1.5 times more than in 2014, and pay VND730 billion to the State Budget a year. The industrial and construction sectors are estimated to contribute 46 per cent to the province's GDP.
According to Vinacomin, apart from Nhan Co Alumina Plant, the province is also home to the Dak Nong Aluminium Electrolysis Plant, which is under construction too. These two projects play a decisive role in the province's economic growth to 2020, which was expected at 16-17 per cent a year.
The Dak Nong Aluminium Electrolysis Project will use alumina products from Nhan Co Alumina Production Plant. The reciprocal support of the two projects will cut much of alumina transportation, packaging, processing and consumption costs.
Especially, in the second phase, the Dak Nong Aluminium Electrolysis Project will raise its annual output capacity to 450,000 tonnes and this will facilitate the Nhan Co Alumina Plant to scale up production to 1.3 million tonnes a year. The latter will build two new alumina plants in Dak Glong and Dak Song, with each having a yearly output capacity of 2 million tonnes, which is likely to be further raised to 3-4 million tonnes a year.
Huong Giang
Vietnamese
