Auginish Alumina, Europe's largest alumina refinery, approved for expansion

, Aughinish Alumina, the main alumina asset of Europe's largest alumina refinery and Rusal, has been approved for the expansion of a large plant near Foynes in Limerick County.

Rusal's Aughinish alumina refinery hopes to expand the height of its large bauxite slag disposal site, (BRDA), which covers an area of 183ha. It claims that the increased height will provide an additional nine years of capacity to store bauxite residues in the plant.

In addition, the company is seeking plans to double the area of the so-called "loan pit" to 9.1 hectares, from which rocks can be extracted for sustainable development of BRDA.

The company has operated a plant on Aughinish Island since 1983 and has the right to produce 1.95 million tons of alumina per year by processing bauxite.