ABU DHABI, 19th August, 2020 (WAM) -- Emirates Global Aluminium, EGA, today marked one year since the first bauxite was exported from its wholly-owned mining subsidiary Guinea Alumina Corporation, GAC.

In its first year of production, GAC has exported over 6.1 million dry metric tonnes of bauxite ore to customers around the world, whilst maintaining a world-class safety performance.

GAC is on-track to ramp-up to full production, equivalent to some 12 million tonnes per year, by the end of 2020.

The start-up of GAC in August 2019, and first production at EGA’s alumina refinery in Abu Dhabi earlier in 2019, completed EGA’s strategic expansion upstream in the aluminium value chain and internationally.

Throughout the ramp-up, GAC has focused on safety. There have been no injuries leading to time off work in operations since before production began. GAC’s total recordable incident frequency rate, a key measure of safety performance, is 0.61 per million hours worked. This compares to an average 3.4 per million hours in bauxite mining worldwide, according to the International Aluminium Institute.

EGA’s Chief Executive Officer, Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, said, "We are making good progress with the ramp-up of GAC, and performance is in line with our plans. Most importantly, we are maintaining a world-class safety performance during ramp-up, and I commend the GAC team for this achievement."

EGA's GAC project was one of the largest greenfield investments in Guinea in the last 40 years, and cost some US$1.4 billion to develop. More than half the funds were provided by the largest greenfield mining project financing ever in Guinea a US$750 million loan from development finance institutions, export credit agencies and international commercial banks.

GAC invests in social and environmental projects in neighbouring communities, including building schools, health centres, supporting livelihood development and educational programmes, and running health awareness campaigns that reach tens of thousands of people.

Once full ramp-up is achieved, GAC is expected to make a direct, indirect and induced economic impact of some US$700 million year over year, which equates to a 5.5 per cent boost to Guinea’s GDP.

GAC uses trains to transport bauxite ore from its mine inland to the coast. Each train is capable of carrying 10,200 tonnes of ore, which is a similar weight to the Eiffel Tower. So far GAC’s trains have made 722 journeys from the mine to the coast.

Bauxite ore is transported from GAC’s jetty at the port of Kamsar by self-propelled barge to a trans-shipment point operated in deeper water. This enables EGA to export bauxite ore from GAC using bulk cargo vessels that are amongst the world’s largest, including Capesize ships.