The future of the aluminium industry

Abdulnasser bin Kalban, CEO of Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), talks to The Energy Year about the ways in which the UAE will further consolidate its stance as one of the world’s largest exporters of aluminium, EGA’s role in this consolidation and the industry’s role in averting climate change. EGA is a global aluminium producer.

In what ways will the UAE further consolidate its stance as one of the world’s largest exporters of aluminium, and what key role does EGA play in this journey?
Last year we delivered the best results in EGA’s history, better even than 2021, which was our previous record year. We achieved this by focusing on what we control – the safety of our people, operational excellence, our costs and our commercial relationships with our long-term global customers.
Our production was the highest ever at every step of our value chain, from mining to cast metal. Our multi-year transformation programme delivered up to the end of 2022 around USD 1.7 billion in additional EBITDA over three years.
This enabled EGA to capitalise on strong market conditions in the first half of last year and to generate value from mining to metal in the more challenging second half. This gives me confidence that we will continue to deliver competitive returns compared to our peers in the sector and earn the right to grow.
EGA is the UAE’s only aluminium producer, and we make this country the fifth-largest aluminium-producing nation. We are the largest ‘premium aluminium’ producer in the world. Global aluminium demand is set to grow over the decades ahead, and we will play a key part in increasing supply.

In light of COP28, how do you see EGA’s role and the broader role of the aluminium industry in meeting the challenge of averting the worst impacts of climate change?
Aluminium is lightweight but strong, electrically and thermally conductive, and infinitely recyclable. That’s why our metal is a key material for decarbonisation economy-wide. It is a part of everything, including electric vehicles, windfarms and the infrastructure of the electrical grid. The International Aluminium Institute, our global trade body, forecasts that global aluminium demand could grow by between 50% and 80% by 2050.
However, aluminium production itself generates significant greenhouse gas emissions. We need to decarbonise our own global industry to fulfil our full potential to contribute to averting the worst impacts of climate change. As a major UAE company, EGA is fully committed to the UAE’s Net Zero by 2050 Strategic Initiative.
The aluminium industry is a hard-to-abate industry. This is firstly because aluminium production is energy intensive, so we must work with the power industry to develop the low-carbon energy we need. At EGA, we have already announced a strategic initiative with TAQA, Dubal Holding and EWEC to divest our natural-gas-fired power plants and instead source electricity from the grid, including an increasing proportion of clean energy. We have also formed an alliance with Masdar, the UAE’s renewable energy champion.
Our industry is also hard-to-abate because we have difficult technical challenges all of our own – the electrolytic process which has been used to make almost all aluminium for well over a century generates greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions must either be eliminated by inventing and industrialising a completely new process or captured and prevented from reaching the atmosphere.
COP28 is an important moment to discuss both how aluminium contributes to decarbonising other industries and how we can work together to decarbonise our own industry.

What steps has EGA taken to boost in-country aluminium recycling? What benefits are obtained from consolidating an aluminium circular economy instead of producing new aluminium?
Recycling aluminium takes 95% less energy than producing new metal, so the greenhouse gas emissions reduction potential is clear before we even think about other important advantages such as reducing mining and the global shipping of raw materials.
At EGA, we have announced our plan to build the UAE’s largest aluminium recycling facility, with a capacity of 150,000 tonnes. Already we are sweetening some of our CelestiAL solar aluminium with scrap metal. We call this product CelestiAL-R, and BMW Group is the first customer. There are clearly further growth opportunities for EGA in recycling.
We are also working to increase the rate of aluminium recycling in UAE society, particularly by focusing on beverage cans, which are used by millions of people every day. Too often used beverage cans are just thrown away and end up in a landfill. We have formed a UAE Aluminium Recycling Coalition with leading can makers, beverage producers and waste management companies to work on this issue.
However, what is important to understand is that recycling alone is not the solution. Demand for aluminium is expected to grow, and many millions of tonnes of aluminium are locked up in long-term uses, such as buildings and other infrastructure. Even if by 2050 the world is recycling all available scrap, this supply will not meet all aluminium demand. Primary aluminium will still be required well beyond 2050, and we must decarbonise primary production too.

Can you walk us through the rationale and success behind CelestiAL? What environmental benefits does this sustainable metal have when compared to smelted aluminium? What precedent does CelestiAL set in the global aluminium arena?
About 60% of the global aluminium industry’s greenhouse gas emissions are from the generation of the electricity required, so using renewable energy significantly reduces the emissions associated with aluminium production. In the UAE, we are blessed with abundant sunshine and a visionary leadership that is directing the rapid development of solar power production. This has created the opportunity for EGA to become the first company in the world to produce aluminium using solar power. We began production in 2021, and call this metal CelestiAL.
Last year, we produced 57,000 tonnes of CelestiAL. Customers we have announced for this metal include BMW Group and tier-one suppliers of Mercedes-Benz and Nissan. We have also supplied CelestiAL to the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre for use in MBZ-SAT.
CelestiAL is in high demand, and our production is currently constrained by the capacity of our interconnectors with the grid. We are planning to significantly increase our production of CelestiAL in the years ahead.

How important to EGA is local procurement and growing your contribution to the UAE economy?
Driving sustainable economic growth in the countries in which we operate is one key way that we fulfil our purpose at EGA – together, innovating aluminium to make modern life possible. This is an important focus for us both in the UAE and Guinea. In the UAE, we are strong supporters of the Operation 300bn industrial growth strategy.
We will achieve that firstly by growing our own business – this is our largest single contribution to the economy. Further increasing local procurement is another way, alongside supporting the further development of the downstream aluminium industry through our metal supply and further improving our Emiratisation.
We spend around USD 1.7 billion each year on goods and services each year in the UAE, which is about 45% of our total procurement spend. We believe our demand can spur the development of new local industries to supply us.
The biggest opportunities are in raw materials. We are working both ourselves and with partners on a series of potential projects to develop local production. The goal is to increase our security of supply, and contribute to jobs and prosperity.

EGA operates in an industry that is traditionally male-dominated. Why is gender diversity important to you?
I am passionate about diversity both because I am a CEO and because I am a human being. There are many aspects of diversity, and our first focus at EGA is on gender diversity. As a CEO, I know that there is overwhelming empirical evidence that diverse teams perform better. Diverse perspectives generate better decisions and more creative execution of those decisions. I am the father of four daughters and I am convinced, like our nation’s leaders, that gender diversity is good for society.
The aluminium industry is historically male-dominated, and at EGA we are committed to changing that. Our immediate goals are to increase the proportion of supervisory roles held by women by 2025, from about 20% today, and for 15% of all roles at EGA including blue collar to be held by women by 2026.
We are taking action at every level to achieve this – from retrofitting basic facilities for women in operational areas that were built decades ago to providing opportunities to prepare for senior leadership roles. One thing I am particularly proud of is that I have appointed women to nine subsidiary Board-level positions at EGA since I became CEO. Once we have achieved our initial targets, we will set even more ambitious ones.

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