Emirates Global Aluminium, the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside oil and gas, welcomed His Excellency Mohamed Ibrahim Al Hammadi, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), to the company’s Al Taweelah site in Abu Dhabi.

His Excellency and his delegation were welcomed to EGA by Chief Executive Officer Abdulnasser Bin Kalban and a team of executives. Discussions centred on how the two companies will each contribute to the UAE’s clean energy future.

EGA has a strategic initiative with TAQA, Dubal Holding and EWEC to divest its natural gas-fired power plants and instead source its electricity needs via the grid from EWEC, including an increasing proportion of clean energy. This would make EGA the largest single customer on the grid.

ENEC’s Barakah plant is already the largest source of clean, zero-carbon electricity in the UAE and wider Arab World, with two of the four 1400MW units already commercially operational, the third unit due to commence commercial operations shortly and the fourth unit gearing up for operational readiness later this year. Nuclear energy is an important source of baseload electricity, meaning it generates significant volume 24/7, which is fundamental to supporting the UAE’s growing intermittent renewable sources, which generate during daylight hours. Nuclear energy generated electricity is particularly important for decarbonizing heavy industries, which need large volumes of continuous electricity to power industrial processes, like aluminium smelting.

ENEC supplies electricity to EWEC through a long-term agreement, which EWEC sells on for dispatch.

His Excellency Mohamed Ibrahim Al Hammadi, Managing Director, and Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, said: “The Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant provides a significant amount of EWEC’s clean electricity and will continue to deliver the majority of its emissions-free energy for decades. As the only source of carbon-free power that generates baseload, 24/7 electricity in the UAE, nuclear energy has a central role to play in securing the decarbonization of the UAE’s power sector. Key industrial players like EGA who are looking to decarbonize their operations are already benefitting greatly from the reliable and clean electricity produced at the Barakah Plant.”

Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Global Aluminium, said, “The UAE’s ambitious energy transition provides the largest single opportunity for decarbonisation at EGA. Alongside solar, nuclear power will be a major part of EGA’s energy mix over the decades ahead, enabling us to provide the low-carbon aluminium the world needs to make modern life possible.”

EGA became the first company in the world to produce aluminium using solar power in 2021, through an agreement with Dubai Electricity & Water Authority. EGA produced almost 39 thousand tonnes of CelestiAL last year. EGA’s customers for the metal include BMW Group, Hammerer Aluminium Industries, a tier 1 supplier of Mercedes-Benz, and Kobe Steel, one of the largest rolling mills in Japan that makes automotive body sheet for Nissan.

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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.