Dubai Dubai Aluminium Co (Dubal) said yesterday that it boosted output of cast aluminium products at its Jebel Ali smelter 6.5 per cent in 2009 to more than 1 million tonnes for the first time despite difficult economic conditions.
Dubal said in an e-mailed statement it produced nearly 1.01 million metric tonnes of cast aluminium products in 2009, compared with 947,751 tonnes a year earlier.
The "record not only fulfilled a corporate objective in our 30th anniversary year, but it was also achieved in the midst of the global economic recession, which forced many other primary aluminium producers into a partial close-down of production capacity," Abdullah Kalban, Dubal's president and chief executive officer, said in the statement. "Exceeding one million tonnes in finished products in a single year is a tremendous feat for Dubal — especially as an annual production volume of 1,009,772 metric tonnes makes Dubal the largest single-site aluminium producer of value-added products in the world, by far."
Demand for aluminium fell 2.161 million tonnes, or 6.2 per cent, to 32.62 million tonnes during the 2009 period and production fell 2.542 million tonnes to 33.67 million tonnes, according to the World Bureau of Metal Statistics.
"[Dubal] has continued to operate at full capacity throughout the downturn and, as in prior years, we pre-sold our entire production," Kalban said. "We did this by establishing new markets for our metal, changing our product mix to meet the needs of our customers, enhancing process efficiencies and improving our productivity levels."
Production is set to increase further this year, with cast metal output to exceed 1.02 million metric tonnes, Dubal said.
Joint venture
Dubal is also a 50-50 joint venture partner with Mubadala Development Co in Abu Dhabi-based Emirates Aluminium, which in Dec-ember started commissioning its new 756,000-tonne-a-year smelter at Khalifa Port and Industrial Zone at Taweelah in Abu Dhabi.
Kalban adds that the 2009 production milestone, set by Dubal's casting operations, marks the fruition of the successive expansion projects undertaken between 1990 and 2008.
Beating the odds
- 6.5% increase in castaluminium products
- 6.2% decrease in demandfor aluminium
