The power-consuming production of aluminium is fueled by our own clean electricity. A 200 kilometers (125 miles) long power transmission line gets the electricity to the smelter’s substation.

In the past, such substations used to occupy many acres, but here, all the equipment fits in several buildings.

Alternating current is transformed into 312 kiloampere-strong direct current. The 220 kV voltage is reduced to 4.2 kV.

45 staffers serve the energy complex, 60 percent of them have university degrees. Their mean age is 36.

“I started at the smelter when this equipment’s life just began,” says Mikhail Proskurin, head of the energy division.

Electricity is the main force of production. Passing through alumina, the current splits it into atomic oxygen and aluminium. This is electrolysis. The smelting process takes place in specifically-designed devices – electrolysis cells.

Each of the two 1.2 kilometers-long (0.75 miles) smelting buildings accommodate 168 electrolysis cells designed by RUSAL’s engineers. Nearby, two more buildings are under construction. These days, the output is 300,000 metric tons of aluminium a year, in the future – 600,000 metric tons.

Thanks to modern technologies, most of the smelting processes are automated. The number of staffers is 19 per shift.

“Having learned about the launch of the Boguchany Dam, I returned to my home settlement of Tayozhny from Sayanogorsk in the neighboring Khakassia region, where I worked at an aluminium smelter,” says chief technologist Konstantin Nazarov.

The molten aluminium is delivered to the foundry from the electrolysis buildings via a sheltered corridor. The work is done by metal-transporting vehicles that deliver 10 metric tons of melt in vacuum ladles.

The molt is purified from unwanted admixtures in giant mixing kilns at 800 degrees Celsius (1,472 F), and then the aluminium is cast in 22.5-kilogram (50-pound) ingots and flat bars 700 kilogram (1,500 pounds) each with a total capacity of 800 metric tons a day.

The cooling water is directed into a reservoir at the smelter and is then reused in the foundry.

The end-product undergoes strict quality control before being shipped to RUSAL’s partners worldwide. The bars that left the foundry’s assembly line are the product of a technology chain and the precise work of all the smelter’s staffers.

“If a single process goes wrong, the quality of aluminium is in danger. We can’t afford that,” claims Alexander Pokachyev, a 25 years-old acting technologist at the foundry.

Gaseous fluorides, the inevitable companions of electrolysis, are taken out of each electrolysis cell through separate gas exhaust pipes. The collected gas goes to the dry gas treatment plant.

Placed in specifically-designed reactors, fresh alumina catches and absorbs the fluorides purifying air at 98.7 percent. Then the fluoridated alumina goes to the electrolysis cells through pipes.

This is how the fluorides necessary for the electrolysis process go back into the manufacturing chain, and only warm air rises out of the gas purification pipes.

Both gas purification plants work automatically. It only takes one staffer per shift to monitor the functions of each of the plants.

“The clarity of our environment depends on us. We value the place we live in,” says Alexander Burlak, acting gas purification expert and resident of the settlement of Tayozhny.

Carbon anode blocks are the consumables of electrolysis. An anode block burns out after a month in an electrolyte cell. The bar it is attached to is taken out from the electrolyte cell and goes here, to the anode-assembly department for the block to be replaced.

A stacker-crane puts rows of brand new, 930-kilogram (2,050 pound) blocks onto a powerful automatic conveyer that takes them to the assembly site. Bars from the electrolytical cell move there too while the unburned waste is being cleared away.

In the end, molten pig iron reliably puts together the new block and the anode bar. Now, the reassembled anode can be returned back to work.

By the time of its launch, BEMO needed qualified personnel. And professionals from all over Russia responded to the terms RUSAL offered.

Tatyana Chistoyeva, a stacker-crane operator: “We came from the southwestern Siberian city of Novokuznetsk. We got a decent, furnished apartment. It was wonderful that this Soviet-era custom is still practiced.”

Raw stuff for metal smelting is alumina, reprocessed ore that contains aluminium. It is delivered to the BEMO from Australia, from the world’s largest deposit RUSAL has invested in.

The current production capacity requires 1.2 million metric tons of alumina. The ore is transported from the Green Continent to Russia via the Vanino seaport in the eastern Khabarovsk region.

A separate, 9-kilometer (5.6-mile) long railroad has been built from the Pikhtovaya station of the Krasnoyarsk railroad.

10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) by sea and 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) by land – this is the distance eah sack with alumina crystals traverses before turning into aluminium.

Nowadays, the Boguchansky Aluminium Smelter employs 1,400 experts from 13 Russian regions. Youngsters flock here because of good work conditions, fast careers and competitive salaries.

In the future, RUSAL is planning to hire about 2,000 more staffers to launch a second series of the smelter and double the production capacity.

The emergence of the BEMO, new jobs, urban growth in the settlement of Tayozhny stem from the investments in the development of the lower Angara region, a massive program that has not been implemented in the Soviet era, but is being revived now.

“1,400 people! A unique team handpicked from between the Urals Mountains and Lake Baikal region. This explosive mix of people launched the smelter where once was nothing,” says director general Evgeny Rapatsevich.