Only 606,000 tonnes of the 3.6 million tonnes produced by five existing smelters in the GCC region (16.7 per cent) were consumed locally during 2010, said a senior official of Dubai Aluminium (Dubal) and Emirates Aluminium (Emal).
Walid Al Attar, executive vice president for marketing and sales, said the balance was exported globally using well-established and strong routes to market.
Al Attar, a speaker at The Aluminium Summit held in New York, said GCC production capacity was likely to increase to close to 5 million tonnes per year by 2015, resulting in a larger offering of aluminium to world markets.
State-of-the-art technologies
'When you consider that the GCC smelters use state-of-the-art reduction technologies and that their environmental standards equal or better the world’s best, it stands to reason that the Middle East will be a preferred source for aluminium,' said Al Attar. 'Marketing the additional volumes coming on-stream is therefore more of an opportunity than a challenge.'
He went on to pinpoint prevailing market tariffs as being the greatest challenge to the Middle East aluminium industry.
Tariffs hurting markets
'The tariffs in Europe, in particular, are restricting the market and distorting optimum flows,' Al Attar said.
'The same tariffs are placing a cost burden on consumers in Europe, making this region the least competitive of all the major markets in terms of price,' he commented.
'For the Middle East, which has a production surplus and thus substantial export capacity, the tariffs pose a barrier to maximised, mutually beneficial trade. This is unfortunate as the Middle East is perfectly located to serve Europe.
'Indeed, Dubal and Emal have an existing, well-established logistics infrastructure that allows us to ship our metal into all the major markets across the world — which again translates into growth in marketing opportunities.'
Al Attar commented that the advent of Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (Kizad) — currently under construction on a 417 sq km site adjacent to Khalifa Port at Taweelah — held enormous promise for the GCC region.
