Emirates Global Aluminium reports $1.5bn in net profit for 2021

UAE’s Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) has reported a net profit of Dhs5.5bn ($1.5bn) for 2021, posting a 1,140 per cent increase compared to Dhs445m ($121m) in 2020.

The country’s biggest industrial company outside oil and gas, posted an adjusted EBITDA of Dhs9bn ($2.5bn) for 2021, up from Dhs4.1bn ($1.1bn) for 2020. The results were owed to a strong global market for aluminium.

EGA’s average realised London Metal Exchange aluminium price for 2021 was $2,382 per tonne. Meanwhile, revenues in 2021 totalled Dhs25.5bn ($6.9bn), compared to Dhs18.7bn ($5.1bn) during a year-earlier period.

Abdul Nasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of EGA, welcomes our 2021 financial results. Read more about our strongest-ever results here: https://t.co/AbAn01DaKi pic.twitter.com/5Dnw2cUgdh

— Emirates Global Aluminium (@egaofficial) February 28, 2022

EGA’s proportion of sales accounted for by value-added products or ‘premium aluminium’ rose to 84 per cent of total sales, compared to 72 per cent in 2020. Value-added products attract higher premiums over benchmark prices than those achieved by standard aluminium, a statement said. Total sales of cast metal rose slightly to 2.54 million tonnes, as progress in debottlenecking and the completion of an expansion in Al Taweelah was offset by maintenance shutdowns and global logistics constraints.

EGA reduced its senior corporate debt facility by Dhs2.7bn ($730m) to Dhs20.3bn ($5.5bn), made scheduled and then full early repayment of the outstanding Dhs1.6bn ($446m) project financing for the construction of Al Taweelah smelter and also made scheduled repayments on Guinea Alumina Corporation debt. In total, the company repaid Dhs4.4bn ($1.2bn) of debt last year, while its shareholders received Dhs735m ($200m) in dividends in 2021.

Early in 2021, EGA became the first company in the world to produce aluminium commercially using solar power via a partnership with Dubai Electricity & Water Authority. Production of CelestiAL solar aluminium was almost 39 thousand tonnes during 2021, with all production supplied to BMW Group.

Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, chief executive officer of EGA, said: “EGA today has strength from mine to metal, an optimised capital structure to continue delivering significant dividends to shareholders in future and grow our business, and a path to greatly reducing our carbon footprint. In the shorter term, strong demand has continued in the first quarter of 2022. While like others we are still facing challenges with global logistics, we have adopted new approaches such as breakbulk shipping to overcome them.

“We will focus on maximising the value of our existing assets by debottlenecking and through Industry 4.0. We will drive further efficiency, and we will focus on unlocking further growth for our business.”

“Higher prices for aluminium have prevailed since the world started rebounding from Covid-19, and this demonstrates the strong long-term outlook for our metal as a key material for the development of a more sustainable future,” added Zouhir Regragui, Chief Financial Officer of EGA. “Our deleveraging trajectory remains very strong, driven by both market conditions and our own efforts to improve EBITDA. As a result, EGA is increasingly well-set for the next phase of our growth journey.”

EGA delivered high production at both the company’s upstream projects – Al Taweelah alumina refinery exceeded its nameplate capacity by 15 per cent, delivering 2.3 million tonnes of alumina to EGA’s aluminium smelters. Exports of bauxite ore from Guinea Alumina Corporation (GAC) totalled 12 million wet metric tonnes, an increase of 2.3 million tonnes in 2020. EGA commissioned 66 new reduction cells at Al Taweelah smelter in phases, adding 78 thousand tonnes of hot metal production capacity.