Montreal company to build plant in Ireland

MONTREAL - SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. has signed a deal to design and construct a natural-gas power plant in Ireland to boost the country's electricity grid and power an alumina facility.

The Montreal-based engineering and construction company said recently its Irish subsidiary reached the deal with Aughinish Alumina Ltd. for the plant, which will be built near the city of Limerick. Aughinish is a subsidiary of Glencore International AG of Switzerland.

The contract, worth $137 million Cdn, involves a 150-megawatt heat and power plant that uses two General Electric gas turbine generators and two heat-recovery steam generators, which will provide steam for Aughinish's alumina production plant. Alumina is a compound used in the production of aluminum.

The new gas-powered plant will allow Aughinish to reduce operations of older oil-fired boilers and thus reduce emissions, SNC-Lavalin said in a release.

"This project will provide much needed power into Ireland's electricity grid, as well as power and process steam to the Aughinish Alumina facility," said executive vice-president Klaus Triendl.

Work on the new power plant is expected to start in April. It is expected to go into commercial operation in December 2005.

Canadian Press