Emal phase II scheduled to start production on December 2
$2.8 billion already committed to phase II
Taweelah, Abu Dhabi:
The $3.8 billion phase II project of Emirates Aluminium Co. (Emal) is 53 per cent complete to date and the plant is scheduled to start production on December 2, a senior company executive told reporters at the Khalifa Industrial Zone (Kizad), the site of Emal located about 100 kilometres from the Abu Dhabi city.
“As much as $2.8 billion has been committed to the project to date, as much as 40 per cent of the contracts have gone to the local contractors. The project upon completion is going to add 520,000 tons a year to our existing aluminium production capacity of 800,000 tons a year,” Yousuf Bastaki, Vice President — Projects at Emal, said at a news conference held to mark the record safe work hours of 25 million hours at the project without a single lost time incident.
“The production at phase II of Emal will be ramped up by mid-2014. The first hot metal is scheduled during the first quarter next year,” he added.
Emal, a joint venture between Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Company and Dubal, invested $5.7 billion to develop the first phase of the aluminium plant.
Bastaki said the aluminium produced by Emal is being exported to around 200 customers located across markets in the US, Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
He said Emal and Dubal between them are currently producing 1 million tons a year of aluminium, of which only up to 200,000 tons a year is locally consumed, while the rest is being exported.
Saeed Fadhel Al Mazrooei, Emal’s chief executive officer, said the global market for aluminium currently is about 46 million tons a year and is projected to expand to 70 million tons annually by 2015 with the US, China, India and Brazil being the major importers.
Al Mazrooei said phase II of Emal has been fully financed by a consortium of local and international banks, adding the fuel for Emal phase I and II has been secured through agreements with Adnoc and Gasco.
A captive power station at the Emal site having a capacity of 2,000 megawatts will be expanded to 3,000 MW capacity, Bastaki added.
