Aluminium Bahrain B.S.C (Alba) is pleased to welcome Ali Al Baqali, a Bahraini-national, as its Acting Chief Executive Officer, effective 01 August 2019. Al Baqali has been a part of the Alba family for more than two decades and brings years of leadership and honed experience from within the Company.
His prior roles include Chief Financial Officer since 2013 and Deputy CEO and Chief Supply Chain Officer since 2017. In his Executive Management roles, Al Baqali has been instrumental in the fast-paced progress of Alba’s Line 6 Expansion Project, especially in securing the US$3 billion financing for the Project and formulating sourcing strategies for key raw materials.
Since his new appointment, Al Baqali has been holding one-on-one sessions with various departments within the Company to foster alignment and re-emphasise Alba’s ongoing commitment to Safe best practices. During these sessions, Al Baqali stated:
“Alba strength lies in its Safety Culture, Development of Human Capital and Community Development. As a new era will enfold with the completion of Line 6 Expansion Project, we commit to stay focussed on Safety as our driving force while we take actions to improve our results and sharpen our operational focus and execution.”
About Alba
Aluminium Bahrain B.S.C. (Alba), one of the 1 million-metric tonnes smelters in the world, is one of the largest aluminium producers in the world. Alba is listed on both the Bahrain Bourse and London Stock Exchange, and the Company’s shareholders are Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company (69.38%), SABIC Industrial Investment Company (20.62%) and the General Public (10%).
Starting-out as a 120,000 metric tonne per annum (mtpa) smelter in 1971, Alba’s production for 2018 stood at plus-1 million metric tonnes. Alba’s product portfolio comprises high-grade aluminium and Value-Added Products that include standard and T-ingots, extrusion billets, rolling slabs, properzi ingots and molten aluminium. The Company is well-known for its strong Safety culture, employee development and work culture for value-creation and sustainable operations.
About Line 6 Expansion Project
The pride of the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Line 6 Expansion Project will make Alba the world’s largest aluminium smelter.
With the First Hot Metal from Potline 6 achieved on 13 December 2018, Alba is now amongst the 1 million-metric tonne smelters in the world. Upon completion in 2019, the Line 6 Expansion Project will boost Alba’s per-annum production by 540,000 metric tonnes, bringing Alba’s total production capacity to 1.5 million metric tonnes per year.
Alba’s Line 6 Expansion Project is one of the biggest brownfield developments in the Middle East Region. With a CAPEX of approximately US$ 3 billion, the Line 6 Expansion Project involves the construction of a sixth pot line using EGA’s proprietary DX+ Ultra Technology, a 1,792 MW Power Station (Power Station 5) utilising the world’s first H-class General Electric (GE) 9HA Gas Turbine (GT) and other industrial services.
Bechtel is the EPCM contractor for the Line 6 Expansion Project smelter. For Power Station 5 (PS 5), GE and GAMA Consortium was awarded the EPC contract, while Siemens is the Power Distribution System contractor. J.P. Morgan, Gulf International Bank (GIB) and National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) are the Financial Advisors for this Project. In June 2015, Alba Board approved the Line 6 Expansion Project and in November 2015, Alba secured the natural gas supply for this Project.
Alba successfully closed a US$ 1.5 Billion syndicated term-loan facility comprising two tranches Conventional Facility & and Islamic Facility in October 2016. The 1st tranche of the Export Credit Agencies (ECA) Financing of c. US$ 700 million for Euler Hermes and SERV-covered facilities was closed in July 2017 while the first part of 2nd ECA-tranche of EUR 204.5 million for Bpifrance Assurance Export (“BpiAE”) and Euler Hermes-covered facilities was secured in April 2018. Alba successfully closed the final instalment of the 2nd ECA-tranche - c.US$136 million and c. EUR90 million from ECA supported-facilities - by end of 2018.
As of 30 June 2019, Line 6 Smelter’s Overall Progress advanced by 96% (Engineering advanced by 99.97% while Contracts and Procurement by 98.95%); Power Station 5 & Power Distribution System Overall Progress exceeded 95% and by over 99% respectively.
Line 6 Expansion Project will be transformational for the Kingdom of Bahrain as it will significantly boost employment opportunities for Bahrainis at both Alba and the local downstream market. It will also present many co-investment opportunities through local and foreign aluminium investments in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
Alba External Grievance Mechanism
Alba, in line with the Performance Standards of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a World Bank affiliated lending organisation, has launched its External Grievance Mechanism to receive and facilitate the resolution of the affected communities’ concerns and grievances about Alba’s Environment and Social (E&S) performance.
External grievances about Alba’s E&S performance can be logged via the Alba Integrity Line - an independently operated confidential reporting hotline in multiple languages - via a toll-free phone system or via the intranet 24 hours a day, every day.
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