• Supplying cement industry reduces waste storage and saves emissions generated by production and transport of traditional fuels used by cement industry

United Arab Emirates: Emirates Global Aluminium, the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside oil and gas, today announced that it is to supply almost all of its production of carbon dust, a by-product of aluminium smelting, for use as an alternative fuel by the UAE cement industry.

The move extends EGA’s cooperation with UAE cement companies to re-use by-products of aluminium smelting, in a step forward for the development of a circular economy.

EGA supplies its spent pot lining, another by-product, to UAE cement firms and has trialled the re-use of carbon dust with the industry.

Carbon dust is generated during the process of producing anodes, large carbon blocks that are consumed during aluminium smelting. High carbon content makes carbon dust suitable for use as an alternative fuel.

Over the next two years, EGA will increase its supply of carbon dust to the UAE cement industry to some 78,000 tonnes.

The use of EGA’s carbon dust will reduce UAE cement companies’ requirements for other fuels, including in some cases coal imported from as far as South Africa. Reducing mining and long-distance transport of coal is expected to save approximately 36,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions over the next two years, the equivalent of removing 7,800 cars from the roads.

EGA will supply the cement industry with both freshly-produced carbon dust and material produced in earlier years that the company stockpiled whilst working to find a viable large-scale industrial use.

Freshly-produced carbon dust will be supplied directly to the cement industry. For stockpiled carbon dust, EGA has signed a contract with Heavy Machinery Viqa for processing and re-use. Heavy Machinery Viqa specialises in recovering and recycling by-products from heavy industries in the UAE.  

Salman Dawood Abdulla, Executive Vice President, Environment, Health, Safety, Sustainability and Business Transformation at EGA, said: “Creating a circular economy with one industry’s waste used as another industry’s feedstock makes environmental and economic sense, and we are glad to be working with the cement industry to pioneer this approach in the UAE. We will now re-use almost all the carbon dust we generate at EGA, improving the environmental performance of both aluminium smelting and cement manufacturing.”

Last year EGA recycled over102 thousand tonnes of waste, up from over 96 thousand tonnes in 2017.

-Ends-

Contacts at EGA:

Simon Buerk

sbuerk@ega.ae 

056 3111 536

Fatima Al Mutawa

falmutawa@ega.ae 

050 327 7545

About EGA 

Emirates Global Aluminium is equally-owned by Mubadala Investment Company of Abu Dhabi and the Investment Corporation of Dubai.

It is the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside the oil and gas industry, and the largest company jointly owned by the two Emirates.

EGA’s aluminium is the second largest made-in-the UAE export after oil and gas. In 2017, EGA produced 2.6 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 350 customers in over 60 countries. About 80 per cent of EGA’s production is value added products, one of the highest proportions of any aluminium company in the world.

EGA’s aluminium is primarily used in the construction, automotive, packaging, aerospace and electronics industries.

Over 10 per cent of EGA’s 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, Emirates Global Aluminium 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.

EGA was formed in 2014 through the merger of Dubai Aluminium and Emirates Aluminium.

DUBAL’s Jebel Ali aluminium smelter began production in 1979. At almost five square kilometres, EGA’s Jebel Ali 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 5,450 megawatts, making EGA the third largest electricity generator in the UAE after the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority and the Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority.

EGA also produces water through desalination units at its power plants. In addition to meeting its own water requirements, EGA supplies 1.5 per cent of the water needs of Dubai as well as commercial water customers and bottlers.

Today EGA is expanding upstream and internationally to secure the natural resources the UAE’s aluminium industry needs and create new revenue streams.

EGA’s wholly-owned subsidiary Guinea Alumina Corporation is building a bauxite mine and associated export infrastructure in the Republic of Guinea in West Africa, in one of the largest greenfield investments in that country in over 40 years.

In the UAE, EGA is building the country’s first alumina refinery at Al Taweelah. The project will reduce the UAE’s dependence on imported alumina and supply 75 per cent of the Al Taweelah smelter’s needs.

For more information on EGA please visit www.ega.ae 

© Press Release 2019

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