EGA, Positive Result in 2020

Emirates Global Aluminium grows adjusted EBITDA by 63 per cent to $1.13 billion in most challenging year in decades for global aluminium industry

In 2020 Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) sold 2.52 million tonnes of cast metal to more than 400 customers in over 50 countries, in recent years over 80 per cent of EGA’s production has been value added products, one of the highest proportions of any aluminium company in the world, in 2020 made up 72 per cent of total sales despite EGA’s flexing of its product mix caused by Covid-19’s impact on world manufacturing. Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of the company, said: “EGA delivered a significantly improved financial performance in 2020 in the most challenging year for the global aluminium industry in decades. We achieved this through product flexibility, a relentless focus on controllable costs and cash generation, and strong ramp-up performance in our new upstream projects despite the additional challenges of Covid-19. Local sales to the downstream aluminium sector that has grown around EGA into one of the UAE’s most significant industries, were 252 thousand tonnes compared to 294 thousand tonnes in 2019. Cash generated from operating activities was up 35 per cent to $1.5 billion, compared to $1.1 billion in 2019. EGA continued to improve working capital, which was reduced by more than $370 million in 2020 to generate additional cash, and also focused on further improving operational efficiency. The recovery of the global aluminium market that began in the second half of 2020 has continued into 2021, based on the brightening world economic outlook and growing optimism about the rollout of Covid-19 vaccination. We expect benchmark aluminium prices to remain around $2,000 for 2021 as a whole”. EGA was formed in 2014 through the merger of Dubai Aluminium DUBAL and Emirates Aluminium EMAL. Equally-owned by Mubadala Investment Company of Abu Dhabi and the Investment Corporation of Dubai, today EGA is the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside the oil&gas industry, and the largest company jointly owned by the two Emirates. It is an integrated aluminium producer: the company operates aluminium smelters in Jebel Ali and Al Taweelah, an alumina refinery in Al Taweelah and a bauxite mine and associated export facilities in the Republic of Guinea. The growing broader aluminium sector in the UAE supports 60,950 jobs. EGA itself employs over 7,000 of these people including almost 1,200 UAE Nationals. The company has focused on technology development for over 25 years and has used its own technology for every smelter expansion since the 1990. In 2016 EGA became the first UAE industrial company to licence its core industrial process technology internationally. In 2017, EGA became the first Middle East headquartered company to join the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative, a global programme to foster greater sustainability and transparency in the aluminium industry. In 2019, EGA’s Al Taweelah site became the first in the Middle East to receive certification from ASI for its sustainability practices and performance. In 2021, EGA began production of CelestiAL solar aluminium, produced with solar power from the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park on the outskirts of Dubai, being the first company in the world to make aluminium commercially using the power of the sun.