The News quoted a senior official from Emirates Aluminium as saying that Construction of the world’s largest aluminium smelter is 50% completed and on track to produce the first metal next April.

Initial production at the plant in Taweelah will be 700,000 tonnes per year, which could double if EMAL approves a second stage expansion.

Mr Yousuf Bastaki the project director said that a feasibility study on the phase-2 has been accepted by the company’s board and front end engineering and design will begin this year.

He said that “This will be the flagship of the UAE’s diversification and industrialization.”

Mr Bastaki said that EMAL is a JV between Mubadala Development and Dubai Aluminium. Once the second stage is complete, DUBAL and EMAL will together become the 5th largest aluminium producer in the world.

He said that the plant’s first phase had held costs below the budget of USD 5.6 billion.

Mr Bastaki said the phase-1 required 60,000 tonnes of steel, equivalent to the quantity of steel needed for six Eiffel Towers and 44,000 tonnes of aluminium, equivalent to the quantity in 160 Airbus A380 super jumbo jets.

(Sourced from the National)