Emirates Global Aluminium to account for half of GCC output

Entity created by merger of Emirates Aluminium and Dubal on course to become top-tier producer.

Emirates Global Aluminium's primary aluminium output will be 2.4 million tonnes per annum when expansion at the company’s smelter in Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi is completed in the middle of the year. Rich-Joseph Facun / The National
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Emirates Global Aluminium has been officially incorporated, creating an entity accounting for 50 per cent of total GCC aluminium output.

Mubadala Development and the Investment Corporation of Dubai announced yesterday the completion of the deal to merge their two aluminium assets into one jointly-owned entity . Plans were revealed in June to combine Emirates Aluminium (Emal) and Dubai Aluminium (Dubal) under a deal in which Mubadala purchased half of Dubal.

The move raises Abu Dhabi's footprint in the aluminium sector. While Emal was a 50/50 joint venture between Mubadala, a strategic investment company owned by the Abu Dhabi Government, and Dubal, the latter was wholly owned by ICD, the Dubai Government investment funf. The company will be managed by a board of directors chaired by Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, the chief executive and managing director of Mubadala. The vice chairman will be Saeed Mohammed Ahmed Al Tayer, who served as vice chairman of Dubal and is the current managing director and chief executive of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority.

“We will continue to build on a successful track record, with global expansion of our operations and further development of the aluminium cluster in the UAE, supporting an estimated 33,000 jobs by the end of the decade,” said Abdulla Kalban, the chief executive and managing director of EGA.

Already the largest aluminium producer in the GCC, the new entity will become a global top-tier producer when expansion at the company’s smelter in Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (Kizad) is completed in the middle of the year. EGA’s primary aluminium output will then be 2.4 million tonnes per annum.

The company said it would continue to focus on expanding across all parts of the aluminium value chain, including smelting, alumina refining and bauxite mining. It also remains committed to expanding the aluminium cluster it is building in Kizad, it said.

EGA will assume control of a $5bn investment in Guinea to develop a bauxite mine, alumina refinery and port. The deal, signed by Mubadala and Dubal in November, is intended to strengthen the UAE’s access to upstream resources needed to make aluminium.

Other members of EGA’s board include a mixture of Abu Dhabi and Dubai business chiefs. They include Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and chief executive of Mubadala’s energy portfolio; Abdul Wahed Mohammad Al Fahim, a board member of Dubal; Khalid Al Bakhit, chairman of ICD Brookfield, a property fund jointly owned by Investment Corporation of Dubai and Brookfield Asset Management; Ahmed Al Idrissi, chief executive of technology and industry at Mubadala; and Khaled Al Qubaisi, chief human capital officer at Mubadala.

tarnold@thenational.ae

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