Dubai Aluminium Company Limited (Dubal), which is celebrating this year its 30th anniversary, has consolidated its position as one of the world’s top suppliers of aluminium and expects to stay among the leading lights of the industry thanks to the partnerships it has concluded for building smelters and procuring critical raw materials.

The company was ranked as the largest single-site smelter in the western world (third overall) and seventh-largest producer of primary aluminium in the world as a whole. Dubal has set its sights on becoming the world's fifth-largest producer of primary aluminium by 2015.

'With this in mind,we entered into a joint protocol three years ago with Mubadala Development Company, a wholly-owned investment vehicle of the government of Abu Dhabi,' says Abdulla J M Kalban, president and CEO of Dubal. 'The resulting joint venture aims to become one of the largest primary producers of aluminium in the world by leveraging the synergy of our aluminium expertise and Abu Dhabi’s energy and financial resources.'

Emirates Aluminium (Emal) in Al Taweelah, Abu Dhabi, is progressing well. It has a captive power plant and on completion of its two-phase development it will be the largest single-site smelter in the world at a production capacity of 1,500 tonnes per year (tpy).

Dubal is providing both leading-edge smelting technology, in the form of the company's proprietary DX reduction cell technology, and technical expertise. The first 700,000 tonnes per year phase in the two-phased project is on track for commissioning in April 2010 and Dubal has signed an agreement with Emal to market all of this metal. The second phase of the development, which will more than double the Emal smelter’s capacity to 1.5 million tpy, is planned for commissioning in 2013.

'This will bring the total metal sold by Dubal to close on 2.5 million tpy within the next three years,' said Kalban.
Dubal has entered into a series of agreements with Gulf and international parties for building new smelters or procuring raw materials to feed its production facilities.

Partnerships
In April 2007, the Dubal-Mubadala joint entity entered a partnership with Algerian state-owned oil and gas company Sonatrach for a proposed 700,000 tpy aluminium smelter on a 522 hectare site in the new industrial zone of Beni-Saf. The project will incorporate Dubal,s DX reduction cell technology and will incorporate a captive power plant and deep-water sea port. Feasibility and environmental impact assessment studies are in progress.

Dubal and Mubadala also signed an MoU with Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority and Emaar, The Economic City, in January 2008, regarding the green-field development of a 700,000 tpy aluminium smelter complex including a captive power plant, in King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia. Again, this project will incorporate Dubal’s DX reduction cell technology. Numerous studies have been concluded on the project, such as pre-feasibility, environmental assessments, power studies, financial analysis and downstream promotion. The next phase, comprising a Bankable Feasibility Study and concluding all the necessary agreements for ensuring a swift and smooth project development, has commenced.

Dubal is also investing actively in opportunities to secure its requirements of alumina and other critical raw materials. With regards to alumina feedstock in particular, the company has to date engaged in four strategic upstream bauxite/alumina projects, namely:

• The CAP Project in Brazil, which is a joint venture with Vale of Brazil and Norsk Hydro of Norway to build an alumina refinery in Brazil, close to Vale's existing refinery. The CAP refinery will have an initial capacity of 1.86 million tpy, but will reach 7.4 million tpy after expansions.  Dubal holds 19 per cent equity in the joint venture. The first alumina is expected in 2012.
  
• The Guinea Alumina Project, which entails the development of a 3.3 million tpy alumina refinery with an associated bauxite mine in the Republic of Guinea. Dubal has a 25 per cent equity stake in the project as well as a guaranteed offtake of 40 per cent of the production. This project is a joint venture with BHP Billiton, Mubadala and the original promoters, Global Alumina. 
  
• Cameroon Alumina Limited, a joint venture company formed by Dubal (45 per cent), Hindalco of India (45 per cent) and Hydromine of USA (10 per cent) to exploit a 500-million tonne bauxite ore reserve in Cameroon.  A mining licence is expected in 2010.
  
•  A joint venture called Raykal with Larsen & Toubro in India for the development of a 3 million tpy alumina refinery with an associated bauxite mine and a 220,000 tonnes per year smelter, all located in Orissa. Dubal will hold 74 per cent equity in the joint venture.

Entirely state-owned Dubal's roots go back to 22 May 1975 when the late Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum (then Ruler of Dubai) signed a decree establishing Dubal as a joint-venture company. Five months later, on 15 October 1975, Sheikh Rashid laid Dubal's foundation stone. Construction began in May 1976. The official 'birth' of Dubal took place in the last quarter of 1979, marked by four key events: In mid-October the Dubal desalination plant was officially commissioned. On 31 October the first reduction cell was powered up. On 12 November the first metal was tapped and poured into 20 kg moulds (the metal was used to make souvenir ingots). On 31 December the greenmill produced Dubal's first green (pre-baked) anode.

Today, its major facilities comprise a 960,000 tpy primary aluminium smelter (1,565 fully operational cells in eight potlines), a 2,350 MW power station (at 30°C), a large carbon plant, three casthouses, a 30-million-gallon-per-day water desalination plant, laboratories and port and storage facilities. Manufactured are high-quality finished aluminium products in three main forms: foundry alloy for automotive applications; extrusion billet for construction, industrial and transportation purposes; high purity aluminium for the electronics and aerospace industries.'

Exports
More than 92 per cent of Dubal's annual production is exported, the total volume being pre-sold to more than 300 customers in about 45 countries predominantly in the Far East, Europe, the Asean region, the Middle East and Mediterranean region and North America.  The company holds ISO 9001, ISO/TS 16949, ISO/IEC 27001, ISO/IEC 20000, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certifications; and has twice won the Dubai Quality Award in the production and manufacturing sector (1996 and 2000).