United Arab Emirates: Emirates Global Aluminium, the world’s biggest ‘premium aluminium’ producer and the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside oil and gas, today announced that BMW Group is the first customer for EGA’s CelestiAL aluminium, made with the power of the desert sun.

EGA has supplied metal to BMW Group since 2013 for use in the German carmaker’s engines and other parts. EGA will supply 43,000 tonnes of CelestiAL aluminium to BMW Group per year.

Using solar aluminium from EGA will reduce BMW Group’s emissions by 222,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

BMW Group’s annual supply contract with EGA is worth a three-digit million-euro sum. EGA’s CelestiAL metal will cover almost half the annual requirements of Plant Landshut, the BMW Group’s only production facility for light metal casting in Europe. Last year, Plant Landshut produced 2.9 million cast metal components including engine parts such as cylinder heads and crankcases, parts for electric drive trains, and vehicle body parts.

EGA’s CelestiAL aluminium is made using electricity generated at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, located in the desert outside Dubai and operated by Dubai Electricity and Water Authority. EGA began production of CelestiAL earlier this month, the first time solar power has been used to produce aluminium commercially worldwide.

Producing aluminium is energy intensive, and generating electricity accounts for some 60 per cent of the global aluminium industry’s greenhouse gas emissions. The use of solar power significantly reduces the emissions associated with aluminium smelting.

Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of EGA, said: We are delighted that the BMW Group is the first customer for EGA’s low carbon CelestiAL. Aluminium is lightweight, strong and infinitely recyclable, and that is why it has an important role to play in developing a more sustainable society and making modern life possible. One key example of this is by improving the efficiency of vehicles through reducing their weight. But it also matters how sustainably aluminium is made. Solar aluminium is a step forward – using a natural and abundant source of energy in our desert environment to make a metal that is vital to our planet’s future.”

Dr. Andreas Wendt, BMW AG Board Member for Purchasing and Supplier Network, said: “In EGA, we have found a strong partner who values sustainable development just as much as we do. It is a special honour for us to be the first customer to receive aluminium produced using solar electricity. Aluminium plays an important role in e-mobility and using sustainably produced aluminium is tremendously important to our company."

EGA’s sourcing of solar power from the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park through Dubai’s electricity grid is tracked and traced through the use of the International Renewable Energy Certification System.

The Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park has a current installed capacity of some 1,013 MW with capacity to eventually reach 5,000 MW by 2030.

Contacts at EGA:
Simon Buerk
sbuerk@ega.ae 

Contacts at the BMW Group

Sandra Schillmöller, Corporate and Culture Communications, Communications Purchasing and Supplier Network

Email: Sandra.Schillmoeller@bmwgroup.com, Telephone: +49-89-382-12225

Saskia Eßbauer, BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs, Communications Landshut

Email: Saskia.Essbauer@bmw.de, Telephone: +49-871-702-3232,

Eckhard Wannieck, head of Corporate and Culture Communications

Email: Eckhard.Wannieck@bmw.de, Telephone: +49 89 382-24544

Media website: www.press.bmwgroup.com/deutschland 

Email: presse@bmwgroup.com 

About the BMW Group 

With its four brands BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad, the BMW Group is the world’s leading premium manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles and also provides premium financial and mobility services. The BMW Group production network comprises 31 production and assembly facilities in 15 countries; the company has a global sales network in more than 140 countries. 

In 2019, the BMW Group sold over 2.5 million passenger vehicles and more than 175,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax in the financial year 2019 was € 7.118 billion on revenues amounting to € 104.210 billion. As of 31 December 2019, the BMW Group had a workforce of 126,016 employees. 

The success of the BMW Group has always been based on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability throughout the value chain, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as an integral part of its strategy. 

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 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 2019, EGA sold 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 400 customers in over 50 countries. Over 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 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. ASI certification is the aluminium industry’s internationally recognised standard for environmental and social performance and governance.

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 5,850 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 will supply 40 per cent of EGA’s needs once fully ramped-up.

Bauxite exports from Guinea Alumina Corporation, EGA’s wholly-owned subsidiary in Guinea, began in August 2019. The GAC project is one of the largest greenfield investments in Guinea in over 40 years. 

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

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