EGA supplies 203,000t of waste to other industries as feedstock

Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), the world’s biggest ‘premium aluminium’ producer, supplied 203 thousand tonnes of waste to other industries as feedstock in 2022.

The amount was almost double the volume EGA generated during 2022, reducing stockpiles from previous years, and a 40 per cent increase on 2021 as industries recovered from COVID-19.

EGA has worked for more than a decade with other industries in the UAE to find productive uses for by-products from aluminium production.

Re-use diverts waste from landfill and reduces the need to exploit new natural resources, contributing to the development of a circular economy.

EGA is a global leader in the re-use of spent pot lining, the largest single by-product stream from aluminium smelting. Worldwide, the aluminium industry produces over 1 million tonnes of spent pot lining every year according to industry experts, with much kept in indefinite storage. Use of EGA’s spent pot lining as alternative raw material helps reduce greenhouse gases and nitrogen oxides from the cement sector.

Other major by-product streams for which EGA has found re-uses with other industries include carbon dust, dross, and potline process waste.

Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Global Aluminium, said: “Reducing humanity’s burden on the environment while further improving global living standards requires us to maximise the use of the resources we have, and that means thinking of all waste as potentially valuable feedstock. With our partners in other industries, we have made great progress at EGA in developing a circular economy in the UAE and I am confident we will make further progress in the years ahead.”

EGA is currently developing viable uses in the UAE for bauxite residue, a by-product from alumina refining. EGA began production at the UAE’s first alumina refinery in 2019.

It is thought that at least 150 million tonnes of bauxite residue are produced worldwide each year and less than two per cent is currently put to productive use. Last year, EGA announced the company intends to build a pilot plant to convert bauxite residue into soil products that can be used for greening and other purposes.

The pilot plant is thought to be the first of its kind in the world and follows a global R&D breakthrough after five years of research & development by EGA and The University of Queensland’s School of Agriculture and Food Sciences. EGA’s Bauxite Residue R&D Group has created a portfolio of additional novel applications that are at an advanced stage of development, with further pilot-scale trials expected.

Since 1975, when it was founded as Dubai Aluminium by His Highness Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emirates Global Aluminium has been innovating aluminium to make modern life possible.

Today EGA is the world’s biggest ‘premium aluminium’ producer and the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside the oil and gas industry.

EGA is equally-owned by Mubadala Investment Company of Abu Dhabi and the Investment Corporation of Dubai. It is the largest company jointly owned by the two Emirates.

EGA is an integrated aluminium producer, with operations from bauxite mining to the production of cast primary aluminium. EGA operates aluminium smelters in Jebel Ali and Al Taweelah, an alumina refinery in Al Taweelah and a bauxite mine and associated export facilities in the Republic of Guinea.

EGA’s aluminium is the second largest made-in-the UAE export after oil and gas. In 2021, EGA sold 2.54 million tonnes of cast metal. EGA is the only UAE producer and makes the UAE the fifth largest aluminium producing nation in the world.

EGA has more than 400 customers in over 50 countries. In 2021, value-added products accounted for 84 per cent of EGA’s cast metal sales.

EGA’s aluminium is primarily used in the construction, automotive, packaging, aerospace and electronics industries.

Around 10 per cent of EGA’s aluminium production is sold in the UAE to around 26 downstream aluminium companies that make products with EGA’s aluminium.

The growing broader aluminium sector in the UAE supports 60,950 jobs. EGA itself employs over 7,000 of these people including almost 1,200 UAE Nationals.

EGA has focused on technology development for over 25 years. EGA has used its own technology for every smelter expansion since the 1990s and has retrofitted all its older production lines. In 2016 EGA became the first UAE industrial company to licence its core industrial process technology internationally.

As a corporate citizen of the UAE, EGA aspires in all its operations to be measured amongst the world’s leading metals and mining companies in meeting its environmental and social responsibilities. In 2017, EGA became the first Middle East headquartered company to join the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative, a global programme to foster greater sustainability and transparency in the aluminium industry.