Dubal, Emal ink technology licence accord

Dubai Aluminium said it has formalised a deal to instal its in-house developed proprietary high amperage smelting technology at Emirates Aluminium Company (Emal), a gaint aluminium smelter complex in the UAE with an annual output of 750,000 tonnes.

As per the technology licence agreement, Dubal's DX+ technology will be installed in the second phase of Emal, which comprises an additional 444-cell potline within its existing smelter premises in Al Taweelah, Abu Dhabi.

The agreement marks a historic milestone for Dubal, being the first industrial scale installation of this new generation smelting technology.

An entirely state-owned enterprise, Dubal operates a one million metric tonne per annum primary aluminium smelter at Jebel Ali, Dubai.

Based directly on Dubal’s proven, inherently robust DX Technology (installed in the two potlines comprising a total of 756 cells in Emal Phase I), this is the product of a remarkably short design, modelling, testing and optimization process.

Five pilot DX+ Technology cells were built and commissioned in the Eagle section of Dubal’s Jebel Ali site between June and August 2010.

In July 2011, just one year later, Emal announced that phase II of its operational plan would proceed; and that DX+ Technology had been selected for the project.

“Our decision to install DX+ Technology came after the completion of the Emal phase II front end engineering and design (Feed) study, conducted in the first half,” remarked Emal CEO Saeed Fadhel Al Mazrooei.

'The increased productivity offered by DX+ cells (compared to DX Technology cells) made it a very attractive option for fulfilling our expansion ambitions. With this technology, we could achieve our desired production capacity increase by building just one additional potline,' he noted.

'Whereas our two existing DX Technology potlines operate at 353 kA and have the total capacity to produce 750,000 MT of molten primary aluminium per annum, our new third Emal potline will operate at 420 kA initially, yielding 520,000 MT per annum.'

According to him, the start-up of the new line is scheduled for the first quarter of 2014.

Commenting on the deal, Abdulla Kalban, the Dubal president & CEO and vice chairman of Emal said initially operating at 420 kA, the amperage in Dubal’s pilot DX+ cells has been increased to 430 kA over the past 3 months.

'The cells’ performance is stable, with excellent performance parameters being achieved. “In essence, DX+ Technology is an enhanced version of DX Technology,” remarked a proud Kalban.

Kalban said plans were in place to increase the amperage in Dubal’s DX+ Technology cells to 435 kA by year end and to even higher levels in 2012 – ultimately operating at up to 460 kA.

Presently, the DX+ Technology pilot cells at Dubal are performing in line with or better than their DX Technology predecessors, he stated.

The industrial version of DX+ Technology is targeted to achieve even better performances, making this yet another UAE flagship development from Dubal and a benchmark for the aluminium industry.

Al Mazrooei said the potential for the operating amperage of DX+ Technology increasing to this level was factored into the design component of the Emal Phase II Feed study, with the project including expansion of Emal’s onsite power plant capacity from 2,000 MW to 3,000 MW.