Alcoa 2009 Annual Report Download - page 6

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LvL One™
wheel
OUR CUSTOMERS
When it comes to the reputation of Alcoa’s products, our
customers are the best judge. Last year, we saw some
great customer relationships get stronger and we won the
confi dence of important new customers. We’re building
that success on Alcoa’s unsurpassed technology and the
sustainable features of aluminum.
We launched a new line of commercial wheels that reduces
truck weight by 600 to1,300 pounds versus steel options.
The LvL One™ wheel is the industry’s lightest forged
aluminum wheel, yet it’s stronger than any previous Alcoa
forged truck wheel. The lighter weight increases fuel
economy and payload for trucking customers at a time when
they are coping with the impact of the economic downturn.
To help them determine how much they’re saving from
using LvL One™ wheels, we developed an online Web tool,
CalcuLighter™ that provides instantaneous fi nancial data.
We developed a lighter and more fuel-effi cient hauler for
Brazilian sugarcane growers that is about 35% lighter than
its steel counterpart. The seven-ton reduction allows sugar
haulers to boost their payload, consume 7% less fuel, and
reduce CO2 emissions.
In China, Alcoa and COMAC (Commercial Aircraft
Corporation of China Ltd.) are jointly working on the
design and development of a new 190-seat passenger jet,
the C919, which will be the largest passenger jet to be
produced in China. Our goal is to help design an effi cient,
high-performance commercial airliner for COMAC that will
compete in the global aerospace market.
In the land, sea and air components of the defense sector,
Alcoa’s business has been growing as the military taps into
the unique performance benefi ts of aluminum – maximum
protection and mobility.
Building on Alcoa’s new presence in the oil and gas
sector, we announced a joint collaboration with Cameron,
a Texas-based leader in the drilling industry. We will be
commercializing aluminum drilling riser systems for
offshore oil and gas exploration and development. Our
combined expertise will allow existing drilling vessels to
explore in deeper depths than conventional steel risers.
After our aluminum bus prototypes were introduced during
the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China’s
Zhengzhou Yutong Bus Company rolled two Alcoa-Yutong
buses into revenue service in August 2009 in Zhengzhou
city bus service, beginning a multi-month test phase. Then,
in December, the Yutong Bus Company announced that it
was creating a separate division and production facility to
produce aluminum-intensive and other specialty buses
that feature Alcoa’s aluminum spaceframe technology
as well as wheels, fasteners and sheet – proof of China’s
growing emphasis on lightweight, environmentally friendly
transportation solutions.
OUR VALUES
Throughout this diffi cult year, Alcoa remained true to
the Company’s enduring Values. In fact, those Values
were indispensable to guiding us through the crisis and
to maintaining our best-in-industry reputation.
Refl ecting our emphasis on one of our core Values –
the health and safety of our employees – Alcoans have
some of the best processes, systems and metrics for
safety in the world. Each and every one of our employees
is an ambassador for safety in our facilities, and all of us
take it personally. We achieved Alcoa’s best-ever safety
performance as measured by the lost workday incident rate
and the total recordable incident rate, which improved 7%
and 9%, respectively, in 2009 over 2008.
Sustainability is another Value that is important to Alcoa.
Focusing on environmental care, we are successfully
reducing emissions while improving our own production
practices through internal process improvements, waste
elimination, and applying the best technology and tools
available today. We committed to achieving a 25% reduction
from 1990 levels in total direct greenhouse gas emissions
from our worldwide production by 2010. Alcoa reached that
goal seven years ahead of schedule and through 2009, we
have achieved a 43% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Another important path to sustainability is recycling, which
saves 95% of the energy used to make aluminum from ore,
reducing about nine tons of CO2 per ton of virgin aluminum.
Alcoa is playing a major role in boosting the industry’s
aluminum can recycling rate to 75% by 2015. We joined with