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United Arab Emirates: Emirates Global Aluminium, the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside oil and gas, today announced that its project to develop a bauxite mine and associated export facilities in the Republic of Guinea, West Africa, has reached 50 per cent construction completion.
More than 4,000 Guineans, 90 per cent from the Boké region, are currently working to construct the Guinea Alumina Corporation project. GAC has a total budgeted project cost of approximately $1.4 billion. First bauxite exports are expected during the second half of 2019.
Once full ramp-up is achieved, the project is expected to produce some 12 million tonnes of bauxite per year and employ some 1,000 people directly and as contractors.
GAC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of EGA. The project is one of the largest greenfield investments in Guinea in the past 40 years and will be a new global source of bauxite supply.
Bauxite is the ore from which aluminium is derived. Guinea has more than seven billion tonnes of bauxite resources, over a quarter of the world's total. Much of Guinea's bauxite is amongst the highest quality worldwide.
GAC’s mining concession covers an area of 690 square kilometres and contains one of the largest bauxite deposits in Guinea. The concession is located in the Boké region of north-western Guinea, close to existing mines that are operated by other companies.
Bauxite is found close to the surface of low plateaus in the mining concession. Mining is planned to be a drill-and-blast operation within open pits, with plateaus developed and remediated sequentially during the life of the mining operation.
Extracted bauxite will be transported by rail to Kamsar port, some 70 kilometres away, using existing railway lines that are already used by other mining companies. GAC is building rail loops and spurs to connect its mine and loading facilities to the existing railway line.
At the port, bauxite will be transported by a 5.3 kilometre-long conveyor system along a jetty and loaded onto barges. Kamsar is located on the river Nunez some 17 kilometres from the open sea and is inaccessible for the world’s largest vessels. The ore will be transshipped to ocean-going vessels at a floating transfer point.
EGA is also building the UAE’s first alumina refinery at Al Taweelah in Abu Dhabi. First alumina is expected during the first half of 2019. Alumina, which is refined from bauxite, is the feedstock for aluminium smelters. Al Taweelah alumina refinery is expected to meet 40 per cent of EGA’s alumina needs once full ramp-up is achieved.
EGA has signed an agreement with Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée for the supply of bauxite for Al Taweelah alumina refinery.
GAC is also investing to support communities near its operations in Guinea, opening community health centres, installing water wells, building schools, providing adult literacy and vocational training, and assisting with agricultural development.
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About EGA
Emirates Global Aluminium is equally-owned by Mubadala Investment Company of Abu Dhabi and the Investment Corporation of Dubai.
It is the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside the oil and gas industry, and the largest company jointly owned by the two Emirates.
EGA’s aluminium is the second largest made-in-the UAE export after oil and gas. In 2017, EGA produced 2.6 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 350 customers in over 60 countries. About 80 per cent of EGA’s production is value added products, one of the highest proportions of any aluminium company in the world.
EGA’s aluminium is primarily used in the construction, automotive, packaging, aerospace and electronics industries.
Over 10 per cent of EGA’s 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 already employs around 30,000 people, making it the largest employer amongst the UAE’s energy intensive industries.
EGA itself employs around 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, Emirates Global Aluminium 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.
EGA was formed in 2014 through the merger of Dubai Aluminium and Emirates Aluminium.
DUBAL’s Jebel Ali aluminium smelter began production in 1979. At almost five square kilometres, EGA’s Jebel Ali 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 5,450 megawatts, making EGA the third largest electricity generator in the UAE after the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority and the Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority.
EGA also produces water through desalination units at its power plants. In addition to meeting its own water requirements, EGA supplies 1.5 per cent of the water needs of Dubai as well as commercial water customers and bottlers.
Today EGA is expanding upstream and internationally to secure the natural resources the UAE’s aluminium industry needs and create new revenue streams.
EGA’s wholly-owned subsidiary Guinea Alumina Corporation is building a bauxite mine and associated export infrastructure in the Republic of Guinea in West Africa, in one of the largest greenfield investments in that country in over 40 years.
In the UAE, EGA is building the country’s first alumina refinery at Al Taweelah. The project will reduce the UAE’s dependence on imported alumina and supply 75 per cent of the Al Taweelah smelter’s needs.
For more information on EGA please visit www.ega.ae.
Contacts at EGA:
Simon Buerk
056 3111 536
Fatima Al Mutawa
050 327 7545
Khadija Al Marzooqi
050 8777 850
Sahar Farhat
050 1213 420
Ameera Al Marzooqi
050 957 9672
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