Qatalum aluminium plant to restart mid-September

OSLO, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Qatar's Qatalum aluminium smelter will resume production in a few days and now aims to hit full capacity by the end of the first quarter of 2011, co-owner Norsk Hydro (NHY.OL: Quote) said on Wednesday.

The 50/50 joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and Hydro had originally planned to reach full production by the end of 2010, but an August power failure delayed those plans.

Qatalum has a design capacity of 585,000 tonnes from a total of 704 production cells. 444 of the cells had been started by the time the plant lost power on Aug. 10, forcing a restart.

The 260 cells that had not yet been in production would continue their rampup as planned, Hydro said at the time.

"The clean-out of the 444 cells that were affected by the power outage is well underway, and the planned restart is expected to commence by mid-September," Hydro said in a statement on Wednesday.

Soon after the August outage Norsk Hydro declared force majeure for aluminium deliveries from the Qatar smelter. [ID:nLDE67B1VC] [ID:nLDE6790DN]

(Reporting by Oslo newsroom)