UAE exports of primary aluminium estimated to drop in 2016

After China, another region that is growing substantially in primary aluminium production is the GCC or the Gulf countries. The volume of aluminium production in the Gulf region stood at 5.2 million tonnes in 2015, accounting for around 10 per cent of total global output of 58 million tonnes. This was due to the major expansion of existing smelters and commissioning of new projects that the production is increasing at a faster rate. After oil and natural gas, now aluminium is one of the key economic drivers for the Gulf region. Forty per cent of the total aluminium production is utilised by the domestic downstream aluminium industries and about 60 per cent is exported to different parts of the world.

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Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) in UAE is the top primary aluminium producer in GCC and it is also among the five largest aluminium producers in the world.  EGA’s consists of Dubai Aluminium (“DUBAL”) and Emirates Aluminium (“EMAL”) – whose combined production is 2.4 million tpy.  

In 2015, UAE produced 2.6 million tons of primary aluminium. Out of the total production, 640,150 tons were exported globally. The total value of aluminium export was USD 1.7 billion.

In 2016, exports of primary aluminium are estimated to drop to 574266 tons and the export value stands at USD 1.8 billion.  The drop in export is driven by growing domestic downstream applications in the current year.  EGA is now set to start delivering molten aluminium to the downstream producers in Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (Kizad) via a dedicated hot metal channel from its Al Taweelah smelter.  This is a part of EGA’s project that was initiated as a means of cutting cost and in order to develop a competitive aluminium value added segment in UAE. 

The top primary aluminium importer from UAE is Japan. The country imported 132051 tons of primary aluminium in 2015 and 125918 tons are estimated to be imported in 2016. Japan is followed by South Korea, USA, Germany, Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan and India. Notably, India imported 57086 tons of primary aluminium in 2015 and which is estimated to drop to 27419 tons in 2016. This can be an indication to the fact that India is becoming more dependent on domestically produced aluminium or the source of import is shifting more towards China.