Honeywell to upgrade Yarwun alumina refinery

HONEYWELL will be upgrading and expanding the process control systems at Rio Tinto Alcan’s Yarwun alumina refinery in Queensland.

The upgrade project is part of a bigger program of expansion which aims to increase smelter-grade alumina production at the plant from 1.4m to 3.4m tonnes per year by 2011.

Honeywell was awarded the contract by Bechtel Australia. It will help design, configure, implement, expand and optimise the plant’s existing distributed control system, and integrate it with various training and management technologies.

According to the companies, the end result will increase plant safety and efficiency by providing operators with better insight into the processes going on in the refinery. They will be trained in potential failure modes for the plant, so they will be able to revert the refinery back to safe mode if needed.

The company will also integrate the refinery’s closed-circuit television security surveillance system with access control technology for better security and management capabilities.

Focus will be placed on integrating the different parts of the upgrade to provide streamlined information and security to increase safety and efficiency.