Abu Dhabi state petroleum firm Adnoc announced on 13 November an agreement with Emirates Global Aluminum (EGA) for the supply of petroleum coke for use in its smelting process. The petcoke will be produced in the carbon black and delayed coker (CBDC) unit within Adnoc Refining’s Ruwais West refinery, which started up in 2Q 2018 (MEES, 21 September 2018). The CBDC has capacity to produce 430,000 t/y of anode grade calcined coke, of which “the majority” will be delivered to EGA. Adnoc says the agreement enables EGA to source up to 40% of its calcined coke requirement within the UAE.
EGA is the GCC’s largest aluminum smelter with 2.3mn t/y year capacity across two sites, in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. However, Bahrain’s Alba is currently commissioning a 540,000 t/y potline that will make it the world’s largest single site smelter with 1.5mn t/y capacity. Besides using petcoke for manufacturing anodes, the aluminum process requires a large amount of electricity – and therefore gas fuel – mainly generated in captive power plants in the Gulf region (MEES, 3 May). (CONTINUED - 176 WORDS)