Dubai Aluminium (Dubal), an entirely state-owned corporation that houses the Gulf’s largest smelter with capacity of a million tonnes annually, has highlighted growth achievements, its proprietary reduction technologies and successes in safety and environmental matters.

The company has also pledged to maintain quality levels and maximum operating efficiencies and to market its technologies to a wider clientele.

Growth continued in 2012 with year-on-year increases in hot metal production, cast metal volumes and sales tonnages, it said in a statement. “Dubal’s global reach also expanded, with more metal being shipped to South American countries than the prior year. Moreover, the company’s operations remained profitable, despite the pressure on margins arising from severely depressed global aluminium prices, determined by the London Metal Exchange, throughout 2012,” said a company spokesman.

Dubal operates the world’s largest single-site primary aluminium smelter using pre-bake anode technology.

“An on-going focus on safety and occupational health across Dubal’s operations was rewarded with a further decline in the total recordable injury rate (measured per million man-hours) to 3.26 (2011: 3.64). This performance was boosted by the company’s ‘Beat the Heat and Be Safe’ summer programme, as a result of which no lost days due to heat-related illnesses were recorded for the sixth consecutive year and the total number of injuries over the summer months of 2012 declined by 17 per cent,” the spokesman highlighted while giving an overall picture of how the company fared across various fronts.

Dubal’s commitment to minimising its operations’ impact on the environment also reaped rewards, as evidenced by year-on-year reductions in harmful emissions, specifically greenhouse gases (GHGs). The company fulfilled its objective to eradicate land-filling of spent potlining (SPL), a hazardous waste product, as 100 per cent of SPL was recycled for the first time in 2012.

FRUITFUL PROCESSES
Concerted efforts to optimise energy consumption, with concurrent benefits in terms of reduced fossil fuel usage and air emissions, resulted in improved efficiency of Dubal’s captive power station, as well as sustained better-than-the-world-average usage of energy for electrolysis. The latter reflects the improved energy-efficiency of Dubal’s in-house developed DX and DX+ technologies, which operate at higher amperages – leading to substantially reduced specific energy consumption (measured in kWh/kg Al produced). A pilot project to retrofit older potlines with modern technology (D18+), conducted during 2012, has confirmed that further reductions in specific energy consumption are achievable at Dubal’s Jebel Ali smelter. 

A patch of green in the Dubal complex

Confirming the value addition offered by these technologies, DX technology has already been installed at Emal Phase I (756 cells), while DX+ technology has been licensed to the 444-cell Emal Phase II expansion project that is currently under construction. Moreover, Aluminium Bahrain has selected DX+ technology for its Line 6 Bankable Feasibility Study.

Dubal’s carbon management strategy, which aims among other things to continually reduce carbon emissions from every aspect of the business, received a boost at the end of 2012 through the presentation to Dubal of Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits for a GHG conservation project that has been registered under the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism. This project, which is scheduled for implementation in Dubal’s casting operations during the second quarter of 2013, will reduce gas consumption and further lower Dubal’s carbon dioxide emissions.

LOOKING AHEAD
For the year ahead, Dubal says it intends to continue producing the world’s best quality aluminium products, made to order and delivered direct to customers, while achieving maximum operating efficiencies. At the same time, Dubal will continue advancing and marketing its proprietary reduction technologies worldwide while simultaneously beginning to modernise its Jebel Ali smelter by retrofitting older potlines with more energy-efficient D18+ technology, which will also reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and lower emissions of GHGs during the aluminium smelting process. On-going investments in employee training will ensure that Dubal retains its leading edge in terms of developing and retaining industry knowledge and expertise. This will be complemented by continued employee engagement in the progress of the company by way of the Dubal Suggestion Scheme in which all eligible employees have participated every year since 2006.

“Together, these initiatives reflect Dubal’s fundamental focus on sustainability by improving its environment, health and safety standards; enhancing its production processes; and providing a positive working environment in which talent is nurtured so as help employees reach their personal and professional potential,” the spokesman said.

Progress in these areas will also contribute to the fulfilment of Dubal’s vision, which is to be one of the best companies in the global aluminium industry in production, markets, people and results by 2020.

The company views the presentation by third parties of several awards to Dubal over the years as a testimony to the company’s leading position. In 2012 alone, Dubal received the prestigious CSR Label; the Arabian Computer News Energy and Industry Implementation of the Year Award and the CIPS Middle East Procurement Team of the Year. Numerous innovative suggestions submitted by Dubal employees again won several awards in international employee involvement competitions, notably Ideas.Arabia, Ideas.UK and Ideas.Arabia as well as the Deutsches Institute fuer Betriebswirtschaft and the Dubai Quality Group’s Continual Improvement and Innovation (CII) Symposium.