Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) has exported the first bauxite bulk sample shipment to China from its US$1 billion mine in Guinea.
“The shipment of 55,000 tonnes is an important milestone in EGA’s programme to unlock Chinese and other markets for Guinean bauxite,” EGA said on Tuesday.
The company plans to start commercial production of bauxite from the Guinean mine in 2018 and will later ramp up production to 12 million tonnes per year.
The mine will be built by Guinea Alumina Corporation (GAC), an EGA subsidiary, and will supply EGA and world markets. GAC signed a 25-year mineral concession deal with Guinea in 2013, with the possibility of renewing it for another 25 years.
Bauxite is the aluminium ore processed into alumina, which in turn is processed into aluminium. Guinea has the world’s largest reserves of bauxite. EGA’s concession in Guinea contains more than 1 billion tonnes. EGA, which was created by the merger of Dubai Aluminium and Emirates Aluminium in 2013, posted an about 50 per cent drop in net profit last year as the price of aluminium plunged amid a supply glut.
Along with its project in Guinea, EGA is in the process of building a $3bn alumina refinery in the UAE as a boom in regional infrastructure projects spurs demand.
The refinery is expected to be operational by next year and will be completed in two phases, each with an annual production capacity of 2 million tonnes.
EGA, which is owned equally by the Abu Dhabi investment company Mubadala Development and the sovereign wealth fund Investment Corporation of Dubai, has a production capacity of 2.4 million tonnes of aluminium per year.
dalsaadi@thenational.ae
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