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A partner’s perspective on working with Sharakat

Saudi Arabia’s water scarcity is at the centre of a blossoming infrastructure market, with private partners at its core. Its prosperity is reflected in the success of a number of flagship projects

By SHARAKAT

Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) and the US’ Alcoa are the two companies behind this scheme, which will be the largest fully integrated aluminium complex ever constructed in one phase.

The plant is being built at Ras al-Khair in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia. Maaden holds a 74.9 per cent stake in the project and Alcoa owns the remaining 25.1 per cent.

The scheme includes the construction of a 740,000 tonne-a-year (t/y) aluminium smelter and a 380,000-t/y rolling mill, both of which will start operations by the end of 2013.

The smelter will also provide slabs and billets that can be used by a multitude of automotive component providers, including manufacturers of engine blocks, wheels and forged products.

It will feed the rolling mill, the largest to be built outside China in the past 20 years, with primary metal, to be turned into aluminium sheet for food packaging manufacturers across the kingdom and the rest of the GCC.

Also under construction is a 1.8 million-t/y alumina refinery and a 100,000-t/y automotive sheet plant.

A 4 million-t/y bauxite mine being developed at Al-Baitha in the northern part of the kingdom will supply the complex with the raw material needed to feed the alumina refinery.

According to Middle East projects tracker MEED Projects, the construction phase is on schedule. 

The complex alone will provide 7,000 jobs in Ras al-Khair, but Riyadh is hoping that the aluminium produced will encourage several conversion industries to set up in the city. Industrial clusters are already being planned.

A capital expenditure of $100-150m would enable a company to build a plant with a capacity of up to 50,000 t/y.