EGA completes expansion of Al Taweelah smelter to boost production capacity

Emirates Global Aluminium, the UAE’s biggest industrial company outside the oil and gas sector, completed the expansion of Al Taweelah smelter in Abu Dhabi to boost output capacity at the plant by 78,000 tonnes per year.

“The completion of this expansion project adds to our production capacity amid strong demand for aluminium as the world builds back better from Covid-19,” said Abdulnasser bin Kalban, chief executive of EGA.

“The expansion was delivered below budget and on schedule.”

EGA is jointly owned by Abu Dhabi’s strategic investment arm, Mubadala Investment Company, and the Investment Corporation of Dubai. In the first half of 2021, the company sold 1.18 million tonnes of cast metal to customers in more than 50 countries, while in 2020 it sold 2.52 million tonnes of cast metal.

Demand for aluminium has been increasing as global economies recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Aluminium prices jumped more than 25 per cent since the start of the year to trade at $2,556.50 per tonne when markets closed on Friday.

The expansion of Al Taweelah smelter was completed in three phases with the company's own technology, said EGA. It commissioned the first phase in April and the second in July.

“EGA has used its own technology in every smelter expansion since the 1990s and has retrofitted all its older production lines,” it said on Sunday.

In 2016, EGA became the first UAE industrial company to license its core process technology internationally, in a deal with Aluminium Bahrain.

Last year, EGA also signed an agreement with NEO Aluminio Colombia that could lead to the export of its energy-efficient DX+ ultra technology for the development of the South American country’s first aluminium smelter.

It also signed a series of agreements with PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium to upgrade the Indonesian company’s aluminium smelter in North Sumatra using EGA’s technology.

EGA’s DX+ ultra technology is among the most energy-efficient aluminium smelting technologies in the world.

The company reported its strongest half-yearly results in 2021 after its earnings more than doubled from the same period a year earlier amid higher demand for its products and the global economic recovery.

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, or Ebitda, for the six months to the end of June climbed to Dh3.49 billion ($950 million).