State-owned Emirates Aluminium (Emal) is currently producing 300 tonnes a day, and expects to hit its production target of 700,000 tonnes per year (tpy) for phase one by December, its project director said on Tuesday.
"We expect to hit it [the 700,000 tpy] by December," said Yousuf Bastaki on the sidelines of a conference organised by London-based MEED.
Emal is expected to be the world's largest single-site aluminium smelter complex with this project. The first phase of the project will have a capacity of more than 2,000 megawatts of electricity.
The second phase of the plant, which will increase capacity to 1.4 million tonnes of aluminium annually is expected to be completed by 2013-2014, the company's chief executive officer, Saeed Al Mazroui said in January.
"They are currently conducting the feasibility study," said Emal's vice-chairman Abdullah Kalban.
Emal signed a contract earlier this month to ship aluminium to South Korea's Daewoo International Corporation the state news agency WAM reported.
Key export markets for aluminium producers in the UAE are China, South Korea and Singapore, according to consultancy the CRU group.
