Inter Press Service
March 19, 2002

China has been involved in building the Bakun dam in Malaysia’s eastern Sarawak state, and is now eyeing the problem-riddled project’s surplus electricity to run an energy-hungry and polluting aluminum-smelting operation.

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Kuala Lumpur: The much-delayed dam in Sarawak, on Borneo island, was originally scheduled for completion in 2003, but is now only expected to gradually generate electricity from late 2009.

Faced with soaring electricity tariffs and raw material costs, many aluminium plants have closed shop in the United States and Europe. Major smelters are now scouring the globe for places where electricity is cheap and their sights have narrowed down on Bakun’s excess potential even as environmentalists worry about the impact that the dam, and now the smelters, would have on the environment.

In particular, smelters from China, the world’s largest aluminium user, have been showing a keen interest in Bakun. Last year, over 40 smelters stopped production in China due to higher costs and government moves to curb pollution — resulting in a loss of more than half a million tons of aluminium.