Dubai: The first section of Emirates Global Aluminium’s Al Taweelah smelter expansion has gone operational. The 26 new reduction cells at potline 1 at Al Taweelah will now ramp-up to produce some 30,000 tonnes of aluminium per year.
Overall project completion stands at 70 per cent. Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, CEO of EGA, said: “This project to expand our production at Al Taweelah is part of our ongoing debottlenecking of production and investment in high-return growth opportunities. The world requires aluminium to build back better after COVID-19, and this expansion will enable us to supply even more of the metal we all need.”
In total EGA is building 66 new reduction cells to extend all three potlines at Al Taweelah. The project will increase production capacity by some 78,000 tonnes of hot metal per year. The start-up of the extension to potline 2 and then potline 3 will take place later this year.
Last year, EGA sold some 2.52 million tonnes of cast metal. It is the biggest UAE export after oil and gas. The aluminium sector as a whole is one of the UAE’s largest industries, accounting for 1.4 per cent of the economy and supporting 60,000 UAE jobs.
- Some 950 people are working on the Al Taweelah smelter expansion project, with over 2.1 million hours of work completed.
- There have been zero injuries leading to time off work.
