Rio Tinto is located in Kitimat and produces primary aluminium for Pacific Rim customers.
The Kitimat smelter opened in 1954 and it's modernization project was completed in 2015. The new smelter's capacity will increase by about 48 per cent to 420,000 tonnes annually, making Kitimat one of the world's lowest cost smelters. It has its own hydroelectric power station in Kemano and uses Rio Tinto's proprietary AP40 technology which will reduce the smelter's overall emissions by nearly 50 per cent annually.
