Dubai Aluminium Achieves 2009 Output Target of 1 Million Tons

ABU DHABI, Jan. 25 -- Dubai Aluminium Co., the United Arab Emirates aluminum producer building the world's largest smelter, said it achieved its output target of 1 million metric tons of the metal last year.

Production was 1.01 million tons, making Dubal the "largest single-site aluminium producer of value-added products in the world," Chief Executive Officer Abdulla Kalban said in an e- mailed statement today. "It was also achieved in the midst of the global economic recession, which forced many other primary aluminium producers into a partial close-down of production capacity."

Dubal's smelter was producing at about 20 percent below full capacity after a power outage, Kalban said on Nov. 10. The company's smelting capacity has grown more than seven-fold since 1979, when it produced 135,000 tons a year, according to the statement.