Emal Secures $737 Mln Loans for Smelter Project

DUBAI, July 13 -- The UAE's state-owned Emirates Aluminium (Emal) has secured loans worth around $737 million from export credit agencies to help finance its smelter project, the company said in a statement on Sunday.

When completed, the $5.7 billion project would be the world's largest single-site aluminium smelter complex at Al Taweelha in Abu Dhabi. Emal is a 50-50 joint venture between Dubai Aluminium Company Limited (Dubal) and Mubadala Development Company (Mubadala), Abu Dhabi's investment vehicle.

The loan agreement was signed with three export credit agencies, Export-Import Bank of the United States (U.S. Ex-Im), Euler Hermes Kreditversicherungs-AG (Hermes) and the Compagnie Francaise d'Assurance pour le Commerce Exterieur (COFACE), Emal said.

U.S. Ex-Im will provide $317 million, Hermes $220 million, and COFACE $200 million, the statement said. Each credit facility has a 14-year repayment period.

Emal expects the first phase of the project to produce 700,000 tonnes of aluminium per year (tpy) by the end of this year after starting up in January.

Emal would boost capacity to 1.4 million tpy with the second phase, which it expects to complete in 2013-2014.

The expansion also involves the construction of a power plant, with capacity to produce 2,000 megawatts for the first phase of the expansion.