Dubal sets records for aluminium production

Dubal's Jebel Ali complex produced more than one million metric tonnes last year.

Dubai Aluminium Company's (Dubal) Jebel Ali primary aluminium complex produced 1,009,772 metric tones of cast aluminium products in 2009, making it the world's largest largest modern smelter with a captive power station.

"Exceeding one million tonnes in finished products in a single year is a tremendous feat for Dubal — especially as an annual production volume of 1,009,772 metric tonnes makes Dubal the largest single-site aluminium producer of value-added products in the world, by far," commented president and CEO Abdulla Kalban.

"What's more, the record not only fulfilled a corporate objective in our 30th anniversary year, but it was also achieved in the midst of the global economic recession, which forced many other primary aluminium producers into a partial close-down of production capacity.”

Dubal manufactures foundry alloy for automotive applications; extrusion billet for construction, industrial and transportation purposes; and high purity aluminium for the electronics and aerospace industries. The product portfolio also includes bus bars for the primary aluminium industry (used in-house and sold to other smelter complexes).

“As I have stated on several occasions previously, Dubal has continued to operate at full capacity throughout the downturn and, as in prior years, we pre-sold our entire production,” continued Kalban.

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“We did this by establishing new markets for our metal, changing our product mix to meet the needs of our customers, enhancing process efficiencies and improving our productivity levels — a strategic combination that enabled a 6.5% year-on-year increase in cast metal production compared to the 947,751 metric tonnes cast in 2008."

The Ducal boss went on to explain that the 2009 milestone was the fruition of successive expansion projects undertaken at the Jebel Ali site between 1990 and 2008.

"Dubal's smelting capacity has grown from 135,000 metric tonnes per annum at commissioning in 1979, to a current one million metric tonnes per annum — in other words, a seven-fold increase. The capacity of our casting operations has expanded in parallel: from an initial 490 metric tonnes per annum it has grown 159.39 per cent to a current 1,271,000 metric tonnes per annum — which makes it the largest in the world."

Since inception, Dubal's Casting operations have repeatedly notched up world-class performance achievements. "The first one million tonnes of finished products was produced in 1987, with the five millionth cumulative metric tonne production milestone being reached in 2001. Just six years later, in October 2007, we manufactured the ten millionth cumulative metric tonne of finished products.

"What's more, Dubal has been the world's biggest single-plant producer of aluminium extrusion billets for several years."