Emirates Global Aluminium, on Wednesday announced that the company plans to build the company’s first and the UAE’s largest aluminium recycling facility.
The plant will have the capacity to process 150,000 tons a year of aluminum scrap into low-carbon billets under the product name EternAL, according to a statement.
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EGA is the Middle East’s biggest producer of the metal and the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside oil and gas.
The facility will process post-consumer aluminium scrap such as used window frames, as well as pre-consumer aluminium scrap from extrusion production, into low-carbon, high quality aluminium billets.
According to the EGA press release, aluminium scrap for the recycling facility will mainly be sourced from the UAE and the wider region.
More than half the aluminium scrap generated in the GCC is currently either disposed of or exported.
Feasibility studies for the project are underway, according to EGA, and production ramp-up could begin as early as 2024.
Production of aluminium through recycling requires a fraction of the energy consumed to produce new primary aluminium, with significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions per tonne of production as a result.
The International Aluminium Institute forecasts that recycled aluminium will account for up to 60 per cent of global aluminium supply by 2050.
Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Global Aluminium, said: “End users of aluminium – from auto manufacturers to beverage makers – are increasingly committing to net zero in response to the expectations of society. This, our first recycling facility at EGA to produce EternAL, is one of the steps we plan to take to provide low carbon metal for our customers around the world.
“This facility will also strengthen EGA’s position as global leader in billet production, growing our capacity from some 1.15 million tonnes per year to some 1.3 million tonnes amid ever-increasing demand from our customers for this value-added product.”
The CEO said that in the UAE, it will enable EGA to make a further contribution to “creating opportunities in construction” and through “the replacement of some imported raw materials with recyclable resources already in the UAE.”
Last year, EGA had begun marketing aluminium made with the power of the desert sun under the product name CelestiAL.
Emirates Global Aluminium is equally owned by two sovereign wealth funds — Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co. and Investment Corp. of Dubai.
Aluminium being light, strong, durable, electrically and thermally conductive, formable and infinitely recyclable, is ideal for applications from electric vehicles to windfarms to mass transit systems that are essential to reach net zero while improving living standards.
The International Aluminium Institute forecasts that global aluminium demand will rise by 50 to 80 per cent by 2050.
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