Taiwan Aiuminium Corporation

As one of Taiwan's basic metal industries coming entirely under the control of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Kaohsiung-based Taiwan Aluminium Corp. is responsible for ensuring adequate supplies to local industry of aluminum raw materials and semi-finished products such as aluminum sheets, plates, foil, and extrusions. Although the company does produce some finished pro ducts, its main function in this area is limited to demonstrating and promoting the use of aluminum. Established in May, 1946, TALCO began producing aluminum the following year. Since then, the company has constantly modernized its plant and expanded its rolling and extrusion operations. The pace of growth has been particularly marked during the past five years, with the completion of new facilities such as a 90 MW diesel engine power plant in 1973, a division to produce standard ISO shipping containers, a fully automatic aluminum can plant to produce 12 oz. beer and soft drink cans, an aluminum wire and rod plant, a roll-bond sheet plant for refrigeration evaporators, a super-purity aluminum smelter to produce 99.99 percent pure aluminum, and an aluminum etched foil plant to supply the electronics industry. Because Taiwan does not have resources of bauxite, the main raw material for aluminum, it has to rely on imports from Australia and Malaysia under long-term contracts. Annual imports amounting to 200,000 tons are shipped into TALCO own waterfront piers, which can handle vessels up to the 25,000-30,000 ton class. TALCO started rolling aluminum in 1949. Today, the company's reversing hot mill is capable of rolling four-ton slabs (rolling ingots) into 1,900 mm wide plates and 1,270 mm wide sheet stock, while the two cold mills can further roll the sheet stock into aluminum sheets up to 1,220 mm wide, in different thicknesses, down to 0.1 mm minimum and in different tempers. Aluminum sheets can be supplied in the forms of coiled, flat, color-coated corrugated embossed and circular. Besides the sheet mills, there are three foil mills which can roll aluminum into foil as thin as 0.06 mm. TALCO started extruding aluminum in 1953 with an 850-ton extrusion press, which is still in use. TALCO's extrusion plant today is equipped with four horizontal type hydraulic extrusion presses (one 850- ton, one 1,250-ton, one 3,000-ton, and one 5,000-ton), and is capable of producing all kinds of sections and shapes that can be circumscribed with a circle up to 400 mm in diameter. TALCO makes most of the extrusion dies in its own shop, and also has its own anodizing facility to produce aluminum extrusions with anodized surfaces. TALCO operates a foundry and is capable of producing sand castings, permanent-mold castings and small size die castings. To meet the rapidly growing market demand for aluminum, TALCO has constructed a second smelting plant, which started operations in January 1977. This facility has boosted ingot capacity from 38,000 metric tons a year in 1976 to 70,000 tons currently, and will further increase production to 85,000 tons in 1980. TALCO's current production includes 30,000 tons of aluminum sheets, 4,000 tons of plain and paper-backed foil, 5,000 tons of aluminum extrusions and 4,000 shipping containers per year. TALCO has succeeded in introducing to the domestic market aluminum windows and doors. These have become so popular that there are now more than 100 makers in Taiwan, a few of which are quipped with presses to produce extrusions.