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EGA and Masdar to sign deal

16 April 2024

The UAE’s Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) and Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) 16 April to collaborate on decarbonising EGA's overseas operations.

Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, EGA chief executive, made the statement during ongoing World Future Energy Summit (WFES) in Abu Dhabi on 16 April.

The executive said the challenges and initiatives involved in decarbonising its operations, including tapping partners like Masdar and new potential technologies such as hydrogen going forward.

"We are looking for suitable partners to meet our decarbonisation target. In terms of technologies, we are looking at opitmising our gas generation plants, and pursuing renewable energy. In 10 years time we believe hydrogen will be available and at the right cost," Bin Kalban said. 

Aluminium and steel production are carbon-intensive and considered hard-to-abate sectors.

In 2021, EGA launched Celestial, a product range that is manufactured using solar-based electricity.

German carmaker BMW became the first customer to sign up for Celestial aluminium. EGA will supply 43,000 tonnes of Celestial aluminium to BMW Group annually, which reduces BMW Group’s emissions by approximately 222,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

In March this year, EGA announced that it had signed a binding sale and purchase agreement to acquire the German aluminium recycling firm Leichtmetall Aluminium Giesserei Hannover.

Leichtmetall is a European specialty foundry, with production including hard alloys and larger diameter billets with high proportions of secondary aluminium.

Leichtmetall uses renewable energy at its plant in Hannover to produce up to 30,000 tonnes a year of aluminium billets, with secondary aluminium as some 80% of input material.

The company uses proprietary inductive melting technology, liquid metal treatment and casting processes to produce aluminium products from scrap metal.

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