EGA plans to build aluminium recycling facility with 150,000 tonnes per year capacity

Emirates Global Aluminium, the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside oil and gas, announced its plan to build an aluminium recycling facility with 150,000 tonnes per year of capacity, the company’s first and the largest in the UAE.

EGA has already started conducting feasibility studies of the facility, which is expected to begin operation as early as 2024.

The facility will recycle post-consumer aluminium scrap such as window frames and pre-consumer scrap from extrusion production into low-carbon-high quality aluminium billets. EGA intends to market its recycled aluminium products under the name EternAL.

Aluminium scrap for the facility will be sourced primarily from the UAE and the wider region. More than half the aluminium scrap in the Gulf region is now either disposed or exported.

Production of aluminium through recycling consumes a fraction of energy needed to produce new primary aluminium, which significantly lowers greenhouse gas emissions per tonne as a result. According to the International Aluminium Institute’s projection, 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.”

He added, “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. And at home in the UAE, it will enable EGA to make a further contribution to both the achievement of Operation 300bn and the success of the In-Country Value programme, creating opportunities in construction and through the replacement of some imported raw materials with recyclable resources already in the UAE.”