OREANDA-NEWS. November 05, 2009. UC RUSAL, the world’s largest producer of aluminium and alumina, has announced the appointment of Andrey Pikhtovnikov, former head of the ‘East’ Production Department of the Alumina Division, as the new managing director of the Achinsk Alumina Complex. Yuri Ovchinnikov, its current managing director, has been appointed the managing director of the Nikolaev Alumina Refinery.

These appointments come as part of the RUSAL human resources rotation programme focused on exchanging the best practices, raising operational efficiency and introducing the RUSAL production system on the company’s production sites, as RUSAL is moving to a new model of plant management, which substantially broadens the authority of managing directors.

‘Our plants will be ‘more independent’, and the key objective for their directors under the current economic conditions is to shift their focus from achievement of individual performance targets to generating higher profits and driving down cash costs at the production site in general. Thus, our alumina operations will become ‘profit centres’ which are more result oriented and with better process efficiency’, noted Pavel Ovchinnikov, the director of the Alumina Division.

The Achinsk and Nikolaev Alumina Refineries have been set an ambitious challenge to increase the output of high-quality alumina, improve the power supply network through modernisation of their coal power plants and curtail electricity consumption per tonne of product, and finally ensure profits required for further capacity growth.

Biographies

Born in 1965, Andrey Pikhtovnikov graduated from the Krasnoyarsk Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals in 1987 and the Academy of National Economy of the Russian Government in 1996. Andrey began his career as a process design engineer at the Achinsk alumina refinery. From 1997 to 2000 he was the deputy director of the Production and Technology department. In 2000 he was promoted to head of the Production Area. Then, in 2002 he was appointed managing director of the refinery. In 2005 Mr. Pikhtovnikov headed the ‘East’ Production Department of RUSAL’s Alumina Division.

Yuri Ovchinnikov was born in 1951. After his graduation from the Siberian Metals Institute in 1974 he started his career at the Novokuznetsk aluminium smelter working his way up from pot operator to the head of the production and technology unit. From 1998 to 2000 Yuri headed the process and technology unit at the Sayanogorsk aluminium smelter, then was appointed acting Technology Director and later, deputy head of the Production Area. In 2000 Yuri came to the Nikolaev alumina refinery and was appointed its managing director in 2001. In 2006 Mr. Ovchinnikov became the managing director of the Achinsk Alumina Complex.