ABU DHABI 25 April 2018: Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside oil and gas, announced the first completion of a major section of Al Taweelah alumina refinery.
The project will secure the raw materials the UAE’s aluminium industry needs.
Construction has been completed on the calcination process facility of the alumina refinery after more than 2.4 million hours of work, said Wam.
Al Taweelah alumina refinery is the first to be built in the UAE, and will refine bauxite ore into alumina, the feedstock for aluminium smelters. Sections of Al Taweelah alumina refinery will be completed in sequence to enable the carefully-planned pre-commissioning and commissioning of the thousands of pieces of equipment that make up the huge plant.
The calcination process facility alone contains more than 1,700 instruments, over 100 motors, and some 165 kilometres of cabling.
First alumina from Al Taweelah alumina refinery is expected during the first half of 2019. More than 11,000 people are currently working on the project, which has a total budgeted project cost of approximately $3.3 billion. Overall construction completion of the project currently stands at 82 percent.
Construction work on the calcination process facility was completed without a single Lost Time Injury. The project as a whole recently passed 20 million hours worked without a Lost Time Injury.
EGA operates aluminium smelters in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and is developing two major projects to expand its business upstream and internationally.
Once full ramp up is achieved, Al Taweelah alumina refinery is expected to produce some 2 million tonnes of alumina per year, meeting 40 percent of EGA’s alumina requirements.
Some 490 people are working in the operations team, preparing to run Al Taweelah alumina refinery, including over 60 UAE Nationals. Over 400,000 hours of operational readiness work has been completed to date, including 13,600 days of training.
EGA has signed an agreement with Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée for the supply of bauxite for Al Taweelah alumina refinery from the Republic of Guinea in West Africa. EGA is also developing a bauxite mine and associated export facilities in Guinea, in one of the largest greenfield investments in the country in the last 40 years. Calcination is the final stage in the process of refining bauxite ore into alumina, and is a roasting process to remove remaining water.
The calcination process facility at Al Taweelah alumina refinery has two calciners, which are each 84 metres long, 46 metres high, and have stacks that reach 60 metres high. Each calciner has a production capacity of 3,500 tonnes per day. The facility uses Outotec’s Circulating Fluid Bed technology. Outotec has installed more than 60 calciners using this technology worldwide.