United Arab Emirates: Emirates Global Aluminium, the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside oil and gas, today announced it is bringing the innovative behavioural safety programme SafeStart to the region as part of the company’s journey to zero harm.

EGA’s safety performance is already significantly better than global industry benchmarks. EGA is now aiming to eliminate the risk of serious harm in its operation this decade, a bold goal that has never been achieved by any industrial company.

EGA is focused on continuously improving all four factors of safety – technical solutions including inherently safe equipment, organisational safety management systems, authentic safety leadership, and human behaviour.

SafeStart addresses the human factor of safety, with the insight that rushing, frustration, fatigue or complacency contribute to almost all accidents both at work and outside. These states-of-mind lead to four critical errors – eyes not on task, mind not on task, moving into or being in the line of fire, and problems with balance, traction or grip.

As the vast majority of accidents worldwide leading to injury happen outside workplaces, the programme aims to enable EGA’s people to recognise these states-of mind and errors in themselves throughout their lives.

Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Global Aluminium, said: “Our goal of eliminating the risk of harm is essential and very ambitious for any industrial company. To achieve it, we must focus on further improving all aspects of safety. Each of us at EGA is responsible for our own safety and the safety of everyone around us. This programme will enable us to recognise sates-of-mind which all human beings are prone to which can lead to someone getting hurt.”

Larry Wilson, Founder of SafeStart, is visiting EGA in Dubai to launch the programme and said: “EGA is a safety leader in the global aluminium industry, and I am pleased to bring SafeStart to the Middle East to support their goal to improve safety even further. In our lives, most of us have experienced accidents and all of us have had many near misses. Recognising our own states-of-mind that contribute to these unfortunate events is one key to preventing them, including at work.”

SafeStart has been deployed by more than 3,500 companies in over 60 countries.

EGA has a track record of innovative behavioural safety programmes that improve safety performance. EGA’s Beat the Heat programme, which enables employees to recognise the early signs of heat-related illness, has run for a decade and contributed to the company achieving zero heat-related illnesses amongst its workforce last summer.

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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 2022, EGA sold 2.72 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 2022, value-added products accounted for 78 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 20 downstream aluminium companies that make products with EGA’s aluminium. The growing broader aluminium sector in the UAE supports almost 50,000 jobs. EGA itself employs around 6,500 of these people including more than 1,200 UAE Nationals.

EGA has focused on technology development for over 30 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. EGA’s bauxite mining subsidiary, Guinea Alumina Corporation, achieved the first ASI certification in Guinea in 2023. 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 45 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.