UAE's Emal smelter 60 pct complete - report

DUBAI, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Emirates Aluminium (Emal), planned to be the world's largest single aluminium smelter, is 60 percent completed, an Arabic language newspaper said on Wednesday, citing a company executive. "Construction works are ongoing according to plan and the budget allocated by the company, pointing to more than 60 percent of the project being completed," Al-Khaleej said, quoting Yousuf Abdulla Bastaki, the project director of Emal at a conference in the UAE. Emal is a 50-50 joint venture between Dubai Aluminium Co (Dubal) and Mubadala Development Company, an investment vehicle owned by the government of the emirate of Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi is the capital of the seven-member federation of the United Arab Emirates. Dubal aims to bring the first phase of the aluminium smelter online in December with a capacity of 700,000 tonnes per year, the company said in March. The plant will eventually have the capacity to produce 1.4 million tonnes per year and would come fully online between 2013-2014, Bastaki said on March 29. (Reporting by Tamara Walid; editing by James Jukwey)