Tag Archives: Abdulla Kalban

thyssenkrupp Barge Loader delivered to EGA bauxite project in Guinea

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The final major piece of equipment for Emirates Global Aluminium’s in-development bauxite mining project in the Republic of Guinea has arrived in the West African country, the company reports.

The Barge Loader was shipped to Guinea from thyssenkrupp’s fabrication facility in India. It will be installed at the end of the project’s 1.5 km pier, where it will load bauxite ore into self-propelled barges for transport to waiting bulk cargo ships offshore, EGA said.

The Barge Loader is the last in a series of massive pieces of equipment for the project to arrive in Guinea, which includes some of the largest ever installed in a mining project in Africa, according to EGA.

Abdulla Kalban, EGA’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, said: “All the major pieces of equipment for our Guinea project have now safely arrived, completing a series of challenging engineering and logistical feats. Construction overall is very well advanced and we look forward to its safe completion and the start of bauxite exports later this year.”

The project is being developed by EGA’s subsidiary, Guinea Alumina Corp, and has a total budgeted project cost of around $1.4 billion. First bauxite exports are expected during the second half of 2019.

Just last month, the company loaded the first batch of bauxite from the project.

Emirates Global Aluminium nears first production at Al Taweelah alumina refinery

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Emirates Global Aluminium has entered the final stages of commissioning of what will be the UAE’s first alumina refinery.

The Al Taweelah alumina refinery has now begun hot water testing of the digestion section of the plant, with first production still on course for the first half of 2019.

Digestion is the first of four successive stages of the Bayer process through which bauxite ore is refined into alumina, the feedstock for aluminium smelters, and involves the heating of a slurry of crushed bauxite and caustic soda to 270ºC using steam.

Commissioning of the last process stage, calcination, was completed in December, and, earlier this month, EGA’s nearby Al Taweelah power plant started delivering steam to the refinery through new connecting pipelines.

“Supplying steam from EGA’s existing power plant, which was built to provide electricity and steam for EGA’s Al Taweelah aluminium smelter, improves the alumina refinery’s overall energy efficiency,” the company said.

Abdulla Kalban, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of EGA, said: “We are making good progress with the complex process of commissioning Al Taweelah alumina refinery, in line with the meticulous planning and preparations which began even before construction started. We are looking forward to beginning production and ramping-up of this project, which along with our Guinea mine will transform EGA into an integrated global aluminium producer.”

Al Taweelah, which has a total budgeted project cost of approximately $3.3 billion, will be the first refinery in the UAE and only the second in the Middle East.

The company said: “Al Taweelah alumina refinery and the Guinea mining project expand EGA’s business upstream in the aluminium value chain and internationally. The projects will create new revenue streams for EGA and secure the competitive supply of natural resources the UAE’s aluminium industry needs.”

Once production is fully ramped-up, Al Taweelah alumina refinery is expected to produce some 2 Mt/y of alumina and meet 40% of EGA’s alumina requirements, replacing some imports.

Commissioning Al Taweelah alumina refinery requires more than 80,000 separate actions to be completed. The new plant contains some 9,500 instruments, 222 tanks, enough piping to stretch from Abu Dhabi to Muscat, and cabling that would reach from Abu Dhabi to Cairo.

Emirates Global Aluminium achieves milestone at Guinea bauxite project

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Emirates Global Aluminium has loaded the first batch of bauxite from its under-construction Guinea mining project, with the tonnage travelling from its subsidiary Guinea Alumina Corp’s (GAC) mine to the coast.

Emirates, the largest industrial company in the UAE outside oil and gas, said the 80-wagon train carried some 6,800 t of bauxite ore from GAC’s mine to the company’s facilities at Kamsar. The ore will be used to begin building a base-layer of bauxite at GAC’s new stockyard, according to the company.

First bauxite exports from the project are expected during the second half of 2019.

With a budget of around $1.4 billion, the project is the largest greenfield investment in Guinea in the last four decades.

“GAC has completed rail loops, and spurs to connect its facilities to an existing nearby railway track that is used by other companies. GAC’s locomotives, which were made in the US, and Chinese-made wagons, arrived in Guinea last year,” the company said.

The train took just under three hours to complete the 90 km journey from the mine to the coast, the company noted. GAC is also building port facilities including the unloading yard and an export pier at Kamsar, a well-established bauxite port.

Once the GAC project is fully-operational, up to six loaded bauxite trains a day are expected to make the journey from the mine to the port.

Abdulla Kalban, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of EGA, said: “This milestone is the result of many thousands of hours of planning and teamwork in Guinea involving GAC, train operator Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée, the owner of the existing rail infrastructure ANAIM, and other rail partners.”

Guinea is the world’s largest bauxite resource holder, and EGA’s project is expected to contribute significantly to the country’s exports of the ore from which aluminium is derived. Bauxite from the GAC project will be sold to aluminium producers around the world.

Once full ramp up is achieved, the GAC project is expected to produce some 12 Mt/y of bauxite.

The Guinea project is part of EGA’s strategic drive to expand its business upstream in the aluminium value chain and internationally. The company is also building the UAE’s first alumina refinery at Al Taweelah in Abu Dhabi. This plant will refine bauxite into alumina.