UAE eyes stakes in bauxite firms
Abu Dhabi government investment agency Mubadala Development said it plans to join state-run Dubai Aluminium to create a company to buy stakes in bauxite mining companies and develop reserves of the ore.
The two companies will set up Emal International to look at acquisitions or developments in countries such as Algeria, Morocco and India, Mubadala’s chief operating officer Waleed Al Muhairi said yesterday.
The two already joined to build a 1.4 million tonnes a year aluminium smelter in the UAE and bought into a $3 billion Global Alumina project in the African nation of Guinea.
“The issue here is the security of supply of alumina,” Muhairi said
Mubadala and Dubai Aluminium joined with Australia’s BHP Billiton to buy two-thirds of the Global Alumina project in Guinea that includes mining for bauxite and building a refinery to make alumina, or semi-processed bauxite.
The refinery, which will be complete as early as 2009, will have capacity of 3m tonnes a year of alumina, Muhairi said.
Information from: www.gulf-daily-news.com
