Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), the largest industrial company in the UAE outside oil and gas, announced the start-up of the first section of an expansion to the company’s Al Taweelah smelter.

The 26 new reduction cells at Potline One at Al Taweelah will now ramp-up to produce some 30,000 tonnes of aluminium per year.

In total, EGA is building 66 new reduction cells to extend all three potlines at Al Taweelah. The project will increase production capacity at Al Taweelah by some 78,000 tonnes of hot metal per year. The start-up of the extension to Potline Two and then Potline Three will take place later this year, the company said.

Overall project completion stands at 70 per cent, on schedule despite the challenges of Covid-19.

Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of EGA, said: “This project to expand our production at Al Taweelah is part of our ongoing debottlenecking of production and investment in high return growth opportunities. The world requires aluminium to build back better after Covid-19, and this expansion will enable us to supply even more of the metal we all need.”

Some 950 people are currently working on the Al Taweelah smelter expansion, with over 2.1 million hours of work completed so far with a world-class safety performance. There have been zero injuries leading to time off work, EGA said.