Emal starts aluminium output at 1st plant - CEO

State owned Emirate's Aluminium (Emal) has started output of aluminium on schedule on Wednesday, the company's chief executive said. In a phone interview with Reuters, Saeed Al Mazroui said: "We have started production at the plant today which is taking place in 33 cells which roughly puts us at 1,000 tonnes per day." By the end of 2010, Emal plans to ramp up production of its $5.7 billion project located at Al Taweelha in Abu Dhabi to 700,000 tonnes of aluminium per year (tpy), Mazroui added. He said: "During the first few months of this year the plan is to focus on supplying the local market and then by the end of the year we will be exporting to Asia, Europe and the Middle East region." Emal is a 50/50 joint venture between Dubai Aluminium Company Limited (Dubal) and Mubadala Development Company (Mubadala), Abu Dhabi's investment vehicle. Emal is expected to be the world's largest single site aluminium smelter complex with this project. The first phase of the project will have a capacity of more than 2,000 megawatts of electricity. The second phase will increase capacity to 1.4 million tonnes of aluminium per year and is expected to be completed in 2013 to 2014. Mazroui said: "So far we have no problems on the demand side because we have already signed fixed contacts and in terms of supply if we don't get enough from our suppliers the plan is to rely on Duabal's supply." (Reuters)