The West Indies Alumina Company (WINDALCO) is a Jamaican alumina producer and wholly owned subsidiary of Russian aliminium giant United Company Rusal. It owns the oldest two alumina refineries that have been built on Jamaica, out of a total of five, of which four are still in existence.

History

Windalco was incorporated in Jamaica on 1 June 2001,UC Rusal IPO Prospectus, p. 91 Glencore acquired the 93% interest of Alcan in the alumina business that had been established by Alcan in the 1950s. The government through its Jamaica Bauxite Mining Ltd. (jbm.gov.jm; est. 1975) retained its 7% interest. Windalco started operations on 7 June 2001.

The government's 7% interest had been acquired under an agreement dated 25 September 1978 by which the Jamalcan joint venture was established. The capacity of the plants was then 1,118ktpa (559ktpa each), achieved in a 1968 expansion, and which represented about 40% of the island's alumina output (40% Alpart, 40% Jamalcan, 20% Jamalco).

In 2007 Rusal took over control of Glencore's aluminum business. In December 2014 Rusal acquired the remaining 7% of Windalco from the government in exchange for $11 million, credited against an outstanding debt of $21.15 million owed by the government to Rusal. The Kirkvine and Ewarton Works had a combined capacity of 1,250ktpa and employed 600 workers.

The Kirkvine plant has been shut down since April 2009 (Great Recession). The Ewarton Works was shut down in 2009, but reopened on 22 July 2010. (as of 2026)

Jamaican alumina plants are considered global swing capacity due to their high cost of energy.

Kirkvine Works

The Kirkvine alumina plant was the first alumina plant built in Jamaica. It had a (pilot) capacity of 100 short tons per day (ca. 33ktpa) when the first shipment of alumina was made in January 1953 (via Kingston to Norway; 2,300 tons of bagged alumina was loaded onto the SS Trident, which sailed on 7 January 1953). The plant was built by Alumina Jamaica Ltd., wholly owned subsidiary of Alumina Ltd (Montreal). The Engineering and Mining Journal published a detailed technical description of the standard Bayer process refinery in 1957. By then the $60 million plant had a capacity of 1,500 short tons per day (ca. 500ktpa). It had a 20,000kw oil burning captive power plant. Bauxite was mined from the immediate vicinity of the plant from discontinuous pockets in the underlying limestone up to 120ft deep under only a few inches of overburden. The top soil was saved and mined areas returned to nature. Alumina was shipped in bulk or in paper bags via a 32 mile railway to Port Esquivel, where a deep water channel and turning basin had been dredged. A 600ft concrete+steel pier allowed the loading of 2 ships simultaneously at a depth of 32ft of water. As the new landlord of 50,000 acres, the company was engaged in extensive commercial agriculture production. Some 400,000 hardwood trees had been planted, 4,400 heads of beef cattle were grazed. A 170 acre citrus grove was enlarged to 450 acres and 2,800 acres of land were leased to 2,000 local tenants for food production. The first shipment form the port terminal was made in June 1953 on the SS Sunrell. A ca. 1966 aerial photo of the port:

Ewarton Works

The plant began operations in September 1959. Its capacity was 270,000 tpa against Kirkvine's 540,000tpa. It was the second refinery commissioned in Jamaica.

Aluminum industry in Jamaica

+ Bauxite and Alumina Operations in Jamaica (ca. 1979) Company Ownership Mine Site Plant Site Since Port Capacity (tonnes) Bauxite Alumina JAMALCAN Russel Place Kirkvine Nov 1952 Port Esquivel 2,687 562 Schwallemburg Ewarton Sep 1959 562 JAMALCO Breadnut Valley Halse Hall Apr 1972 Rocky Point 1,270 550 Alpart Essex Valley Nain Sep 1970 Port Kaiser 3,117 1,130 Kaiser Bauxite Water Valley Port Rhodes 1967 Port Rhodes 4,200 0 Reynolds Lydford Lydford 1952 Ocho Rios 3,100 0 Total 14,374 2,800 Kaiser 100% 1953 Port Kaiser ? 0 Revere Copper&Brass 100% Magotty Magotty Apr 1971 (defunct 1975) Rocky Point (500) (200)

+ Bauxite and Alumina Production, 1953 - 1978 ('000 metric tons) Year Bauxite (dry) Alumina Produced Shipped Processedto Alumina % Shipped 1953 930 1,070 100 11 29 1954 2,080 1,760 320 15 108 1955 2,690 2,220 470 17 186 1956 3,190 2,620 580 18 216 1957 4,670 9,700 970 21 442 1958 5,810 4,880 930 16 379 1959 5,210 4,260 940 18 405 1960 5,840 4,210 1,620 28 676 1961 6,770 5,050 1,720 25 714 1962 7,620 6,080 1,530 20 637 1963 7,010 5,240 1,770 25 737 1964 7,940 6,060 1,870 24 780 1965 8,680 6,890 1,760 20 732 1966 9,070 7,140 1,920 21 803 1967 9,270 7,260 2,010 22 837 1968 8,530 6,310 2,210 26 922 1969 10,500 7,720 2,780 26 1,156 1970 12,000 7,700 4,310 36 1,716 1971 12,440 7,710 4,730 38 1,811 1972 12,540 7,160 5,380 43 2,135 1973 13,600 7,390 6,210 46 2,416 1974 15,330 8,000 7,330 48 2,805 1975 11,570 5,480 6,090 53 2,374 1976 10,200 6,200 4,000 39 1,600 1977 11,430 6,350 5,080 44 2,035 1978 11,730 6,440 5,290 45 2,150

Early in 1943, one shipment of 2,500 tons of Bauxite was sent to the Alcan East St. Louis plant for testing.

On 5 June 1952 the Reynolds mining operation sent the first commercial shipment to the United States from their new terminal at Ocho Rios on the 13,400-ton self-unloading and recently launched SS Carl Schmedeman, which could make the round trip to Mobile in 8.5 days and carry cargo fuel oil on the return trip. Ore containing about 20% of moisture was first heated in the kilns of the drying plant. A 6-mile aerial tramway, 330 buckets of 1-ton capacity on a steel rope supported by 122 towers, descended from an elevation of 1,920ft to sea level. Parallel to the tramway a pipe line for fuel was laid. Four diesel engines at the inland power plant could generate 2,400kw and supplied the terminal via a 13kV transmission line. Monohydrate bauxite was shipped to the Corpus Christi refinery, trihydrate to the Hurricane Creek refinery at Bauxite, Arkansas. Now a land lord over 50,000 acres, the company had already assembled a herd of 7,000 heads of beef cattle.

Alcoa Minerals of Jamaica, Inc. on May 31, 1960 took over a mining lease from Caribex Ltd, covering 50.5 square miles in Northern Clarendon in the Mocho Mountains area. The government on 15 December 1961 granted a 25-year license requiring the start of commercial mining by 31 May 1963 under substantially the same regulatory and royalty conditions that applied to Reynolds and Kaiser. An 18.8 mile company owned railway was built to the new terminal at Rocky Point (), over which the Jamaica Railway Corporation handled the haulage. The deepwater port with the ore drying plant were built in an abandoned swamp area. A distinctive 100ft high 300ft diameter white dome was built to stockpile dried bauxite. Tubes for the skeleton and sheet for the cover were made from aluminum alloy. The unusual shape was chosen to minimize the spatial footprint and thus reduce dredging requirements. Shipments were made to Alcoa's Point Comfort refinery.

References