Arabian Business reported that Emirates Aluminium has taken delivery of major power generation equipment at the Abu Dhabi Ports Company berthing pier in Taweelah, in preparation for construction of the world's largest aluminium smelter.

The arrival of the General Electric's frame 9FA advanced gas turbine represents a logistics and infrastructure milestone for the huge project. Emirates Aluminium, or EMAL, has also taken delivery of more than 125 truckloads of associated equipment.

Mr Duncan Hedditch, CEO of EMAL said that "The arrival of this equipment onsite brings the project one large step closer to completion and hot metal in 2010."

Over the next 5 months, EMAL will receive 5 more GE gas turbines and generators, which will enable the completion of the first stage of the power generation infrastructure. The 325,000 HP gas turbine weighing 280,000 kilogram has been specially developed for industrial applications to burn natural gas or fuel oil to rotate the generator to produce about 260 MW of electricity. This plant will form part of the EMAL smelter, providing the electricity for the production of 700,000 tonnes of aluminium per year produced by the smelter.

The EMAL smelter is being built in two phases, with phase one currently on schedule to be completed by 2010 and will have a production output of 700,000 tonnes.

Upon completion of the second phase, output is expected to reach 1.4m tonnes of primary aluminium.

(Sourced from www.arabianbusiness.com)