Emal smelter gets $2.8b investment

Dubai: An investment of $2.8 billion has been committed towards developing the Emirates Aluminium (Emal) smelter in the Taweelah area of Abu Dhabi, a senior official involved in the project said.

Emal is being built on a six square kilometre site in two phases with a total capacity of 1.4 million tonnes of primary aluminium per year.

"We have so far committed $2.8 billion for purchasing equipment and material. We are on track to produce first metal in the first quarter of 2010," Emal project director Yousuf Bastaki told Gulf News.

He said the first phase will cost $5.6 billion. Work on the second phase is expected to begin soon after the 700,000-tonne first phase is ready.

"All economic factors encourage us to do it right after the completion of phase one," Bastaki said.

A joint venture of Canada's SNC-Lavalin and Australia's Worley Parsons is handling the engineering, procurement, construction and management contract. The deal is valued about $300 million.

General Electric has been awarded a $500-million contract for a 2,000 mega-watt power plant at the site. Emal's second phase will have another 1,500 megawatt power plant.

Civil work contracts for the main potlines have also been awarded, Bastaki said, adding that 400 engineers are on the site now.

When fully completed Emal, a joint venture between Dubai Aluminium Company Limited (Dubal) and Abu Dhabi's Mub-adala, will become the world's largest single site aluminium smelter, overtaking Russian firm Rusal's smelter at Bratsk that has a capacity of 976,000 tonnes per year.

Bastaki, who is also project director at Dubal, said the Dubai plant's raw metal production capacity could rise by 5.25 per cent to one million tonnes per year after output enhancement projects are completed next year.

Last year the plant in Jebel Ali produced 944,000 tonnes of products, including 890,000 tonnes of primary aluminium. Its current primary metal production capacity is 950,000 tonnes.

The enhanced capacity will mainly come from improvement work at potlines 21 and 43.