United Arab Emirates: Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Global Aluminium, the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside oil and gas, today visited the company’s medical centre in Al Taweelah to personally thank EGA’s COVID-19 team, who pledged to keep EGA’s workplace safe.

EGA is a vital industrial company and a foundation of both the UAE and Guinean economies. Thousands of EGA employees remained on-site throughout the pandemic to run the company’s industrial operations and ensure the production of the metal the world needs. EGA makes one-in-every 25 tonnes of aluminium produced worldwide.

EGA has closely followed the guidelines set out by the UAE and Guinean authorities to protect its people.

In the UAE, EGA’s medical centres are permanently staffed with 65 doctors, nurses, and other personnel who are on duty around the clock to keep people safe. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, EGA deployed two additional medical teams to conduct regular COVID-19 testing of all employees and contractors working at EGA sites in the UAE.

In Guinea, EGA almost doubled the size of its medical team to support and care for employees. EGA also worked with authorities to provide neighbouring communities with vital information about protection measures, as well as with the hygiene equipment they need.

The COVID-19 team was created to monitor the pandemic and guide EGA’s responses to daily changes. The primary objective of the COVID-19 team was to reduce the pace of the virus’ spread and flatten the curve, ensuring EGA’s operations shifts continued to run smoothly throughout shifts. To date, EGA's medical teams have performed more than 350,000 PCR tests and administered over 14,000 vaccinations to employees and contractors. For more than two years now, the COVID-19 team continues to closely monitor the latest developments of the pandemic.

In addition, EGA’s safety teams conducted intensive employee education campaigns, implemented social distancing at all of EGA’s sites, installed disinfection tunnels at six key access points, and made use of more than 200 disinfection fogging machines to sanitise areas throughout EGA’s facilities.

Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Global Aluminium, told the team: “Everyone working on-site at EGA during COVID-19 was a hero, and all have relied on this dedicated COVID-19 team to keep us safe every day. Your commitment to your colleagues, despite unprecedented challenges and in many cases concerns about your own families in the UAE and abroad, has been inspiring for us all. On behalf of everyone at EGA, I thank you for your work which has enabled us to continue providing the world with a vital metal that makes modern life possible, including as part of much of the equipment and infrastructure used to fight the pandemic.”

At the beginning of the pandemic, EGA partnered with Bee’ah, DP World and Masdar to launch a Vital Industry COVID-19 Task Force, a coalition of industrial companies operating across the UAE, convened to share best practices on the management of the global pandemic.

-Ends- 

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 2021, EGA sold 2.54 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 2021, value-added products accounted for 84 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 26 downstream aluminium companies that make products with EGA’s aluminium. The growing broader aluminium sector in the UAE supports 60,950 jobs. EGA itself employs over 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, 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. 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 40 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.