Emirates Global Aluminium, the world’s biggest ‘premium aluminium’ producer, has joined the First Movers Coalition, putting the company’s purchasing power behind emerging clean technologies in hard-to-abate sectors.

The First Movers Coalition aims to signal market demand for low-carbon products from hard-to-abate sectors - including aluminium, aviation, chemicals, concrete, shipping, steel, and trucking - to accelerate their commercial-competitiveness with higher-carbon alternatives.

EGA is the first UAE-headquartered company to join the First Movers Coalition, whose current members include more than 50 major companies from around the world. The First Movers Coalition is led by the World Economic Forum and the United States Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry.

The hard-to-abate sectors targeted by the First Movers Coalition account for 30 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of the coalition is to use demand to speed the development and scaling-up of new technologies required to decarbonise these sectors.

By joining the First Movers Coalition, companies commit to buying a proportion of their needs from hard-to-abate sectors this decade as low carbon. EGA intends to identify suppliers in the hard-to-abate sectors with the capability to innovate on emissions reductions, and explore specific cooperative projects. Amongst the hard-to-abate sectors, EGA is a significant consumer of chemicals, shipping and trucking.

Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Global Aluminium, said: “As a UAE company, we are committed to the nation’s Net Zero by 2050 Strategic Initiative. To decarbonise our aluminium, we have to reach net zero not just in our own operations but also our supply chain. Joining the First Movers Coalition is a powerful message to suppliers in hard-to-abate sectors that we will deploy our purchasing power to encourage decarbonisation.”

Mr Bin Kalban continued: “Joining the First Movers Coalition is particularly relevant for EGA because we are a major global supplier of aluminium, which is itself one of the hard-to-abate industries. The commitment from other members of the First Movers Coalition to purchase low carbon aluminium will support our actions in our own supply chain.”

Head of the First Movers Coalition at the World Economic Forum Nancy Gillis said: “We welcome Emirates Global Aluminium as the first member of the First Movers Coalition from the United Arab Emirates, the host of COP28 next year. We look forward to working with EGA to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors, including aluminium.”

EGA spent some $4.5 billion in its supply chain in 2021.

Last year, EGA became the first company in the world to produce aluminium commercially using the power of the sun, through a partnership with Dubai Electricity & Water Authority. Electricity generation accounts for around 60 per cent of the global aluminium industry’s emissions. EGA markets this metal under the product name CelestiAL.

Earlier in 2022, EGA announced a strategic initiative with TAQA, Dubal Holding and EWEC to divest its natural gas-fired power plants and instead source electricity from the grid, including an increasing proportion of clean energy. The initiative would unlock significant further development of solar power in Abu Dhabi, progress power asset and generation optimisation, and enable EGA to vastly increase its production of CelestiAL.

EGA and “K” Line Group have signed an agreement to cooperate on the decarbonisation of bulk cargo shipping, focused on the development and implementation of new marine decarbonisation technologies suitable for EGA’s bulk cargo shipping routes in the eastern Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean.  “K” Line Group is leading research into decarbonisation opportunities, with EGA set to target pilot projects on its “K” Line shipping routes.

-Ends-

Contacts at EGA:
Simon Buerk
sbuerk@ega.ae 

About EGA

 Since 1975, when it was founded as Dubai Aluminium by His Highness Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emirates Global Aluminium has been innovating aluminium to make modern life possible.

Today EGA is the world’s biggest ‘premium aluminium’ producer and the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside the oil and gas industry.

EGA is equally-owned by Mubadala Investment Company of Abu Dhabi and the Investment Corporation of Dubai. It is the largest company jointly owned by the two Emirates.

EGA is an integrated aluminium producer, with operations from bauxite mining to the production of cast primary aluminium. EGA operates aluminium smelters in Jebel Ali and Al Taweelah, an alumina refinery in Al Taweelah and a bauxite mine and associated export facilities in the Republic of Guinea.

EGA’s aluminium is the second largest made-in-the UAE export after oil and gas. In 2021, EGA sold 2.54 million tonnes of cast metal. EGA is the only UAE producer and makes the UAE the fifth largest aluminium producing nation in the world.

EGA has more than 400 customers in over 50 countries. In 2021, value-added products accounted for 84 per cent of EGA’s cast metal sales.

EGA’s aluminium is primarily used in the construction, automotive, packaging, aerospace and electronics industries.

Around 10 per cent of EGA’s aluminium production is sold in the UAE to around 26 downstream aluminium companies that make products with EGA’s aluminium. The growing broader aluminium sector in the UAE supports 60,950 jobs. EGA itself employs over 7,000 of these people including almost 1,200 UAE Nationals.

EGA has focused on technology development for over 25 years. EGA has used its own technology for every smelter expansion since the 1990s and has retrofitted all its older production lines. In 2016 EGA became the first UAE industrial company to licence its core industrial process technology internationally.

As a corporate citizen of the UAE, EGA aspires in all its operations to be measured amongst the world’s leading metals and mining companies in meeting its environmental and social responsibilities. In 2017, EGA became the first Middle East headquartered company to join the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative, a global programme to foster greater sustainability and transparency in the aluminium industry. In 2019, EGA’s Al Taweelah site became the first in the Middle East to receive certification from ASI for its sustainability practices and performance. EGA’s Jebel Ali site was certified in 2021. ASI certification is the aluminium industry’s internationally recognised standard for environmental and social performance and governance.

In 2021, EGA began production of CelestiAL solar aluminium, produced with solar power from the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park on the outskirts of Dubai. EGA is the first company in the world to make aluminium commercially using the power of the sun.

EGA was formed in 2014 through the merger of Dubai Aluminium and Emirates Aluminium.

EGA’s Jebel Ali aluminium smelter began production as DUBAL in 1979. At almost five square kilometres, this site is five times bigger than Dubai Mall.

EMAL started production in 2009 and its Al Taweelah aluminium smelter was the largest single-site aluminium smelter in the world when completed. EGA’s Al Taweelah site is five times bigger than Al Maryah Island at six square kilometres.

EGA has its own power stations at both sites, producing electricity to meet its needs. EGA’s electricity generation capacity is 6,474 megawatts, making EGA the third largest electricity generator in the UAE after the Dubai and Abu Dhabi utilities. EGA also produces water through desalination units at its power plants.

EGA began production at Al Taweelah alumina refinery in April 2019. EGA’s alumina refinery is the first in the UAE and only the second in the Middle East. The project reduces the UAE’s dependence on imported alumina and supplies over 40 per cent of EGA’s needs.

Bauxite exports from Guinea Alumina Corporation, EGA’s wholly-owned subsidiary in Guinea, began in August 2019. The GAC project was one of the largest greenfield investments in Guinea in over 40 years.

 For more information on EGA please visit www.ega.ae.