Abu dhabi: Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) announced progress in resuming operations at the company's Al Taweelah site, with key early milestones reached ahead of schedule. EGA's Al Taweelah site sustained significant damage on 28th March as a result of Iranian attacks on Khalifa Economic Zone Abu Dhabi that led to an emergency shutdown. Two of its employees sustained injuries requiring hospitalisation and were discharged to continue their recoveries, the Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported.
According to Bahrain News Agency, the safety and wellbeing of employees and contractors is always EGA's highest priority. EGA established a dedicated, experienced team to deliver a safe and efficient restoration and restart of the Al Taweelah facilities. Repairs to damaged infrastructure have progressed rapidly. Basic utilities have been restored across the site, with natural gas and electricity availability projected to ramp-up in line with the needs of the restart programme.
To resume hot metal production at Al Taweelah smelter, EGA must progressively restore each of the 1,262 reduction cells. Anode removal has been completed at all the reduction cells, bath cleaning completed at around 90 percent, and frozen metal removed from over 20% of the reduction cells. The first restored reduction cell was restarted on 26th May. So far, 89 reduction cells have been restarted. Hot metal production will gradually ramp up as reduction cells are progressively restored and could take up to a year to reach pre-incident levels. EGA is working to accelerate this timeline.
Al Taweelah Casthouse produced its first cast metal on 4th May. The Casthouse is remelting frozen metal removed from the reduction cells during restoration to produce finished aluminium products, in addition to casting hot metal from restored reduction cells. Al Taweelah recycling plant had recently begun final commissioning and cast metal production at the time of the incident. Final commissioning work resumed during April, and recycled cast metal production resumed in early May. Ramp-up to full production is expected to take up to six months, in line with the original ramp-up timeline, depending on scrap availability.
At Al Taweelah alumina refinery, first alumina production is expected early in the third quarter, with a potentially rapid ramp-up to full production subject to the optimisation of bauxite supply chains. The ramp-up of hot metal production is not expected to depend on a full ramp-up at Al Taweelah alumina refinery. EGA's Jebel Ali site continues aluminium production at full capacity. Average daily inbound deliveries of all major raw materials currently exceed EGA's requirements to maintain metal production at Jebel Ali and meet the demands of restoration at Al Taweelah, with raw materials stocks on the ground in the UAE increasing.