EGA targets 2018 for alumina and bauxite projects

23 November 2016

CEO says Abu Dhabi and Guinea schemes on track as company focuses on efficiency

The Middle East’s largest aluminium producer Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) is on target to complete both its largest current projects by 2018, according to managing director and CEO Abdulla Kalban.

The UAE-based company is building the country’s first alumina refinery Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (Kizad) and establishing a bauxite mine in Guinea, West Africa.

“Hopefully these projects will start on time,” Kalban told the Arab international Aluminium Conference (Arabal) in Dubai on 22 November.

MEED revealed in October 2014 that a consortium of UAE-based Petrofac Emirates and US group Bechtel won the won the engineering, procurement and construction management contract to build a $3bn alumina refinery.

In June this year it was reported that EGA is moving ahead with the construction of $1bn bauxite mine in Guinea. It will be built by EGA subsidiary Guinea Alumina Corporation with a capacity of 12 million tonnes a year (t/y) of bauxite.

Kalban said the company was focused on reducing costs at its smelting operations in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

“We have to be on the left side of the cost curve. We have to keep reducing our costs, improve efficiencies and focus more on productivity,” said the CEO.

EGA has a primary aluminium production capacity of 2.4 million t/y from its smelters in the UAE.

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