Aluminium Bahrain B.S.C. announced earlier this week the opening of over one hundred pots on its new Line 6, bringing the line to around one-quarter capacity.
As of Tuesday this week, Alba is operating 106 of the 424 pots on line six, with plans for opening another hundred by the end of next month.
Chairman of Alba’s Board of Directors, Shaikh Daij Bin Salman Bin Daij Al Khalifa said in a press release that the firm expects to bring the line to full capacity later this summer.
“We are pleased to have safely started 106 pots which equates to 25% of Line 6 capacity. Our next milestone is to reach 50% by the end of April and we expect full completion of Line 6 in early Q3 2019.
“I would like to thank all of our employees and contractors for taking Extreme Ownership on Safety during the Line 6 start-up.”
When completed later this year, the new potline will boost Alba’s total nameplate capacity by over 540 thousand metric tons per annum to an overall annual capacity of 1.5 million metric tons.
Aluminium Bahrain B.S.C., or simply Alba, is one of the largest industrial companies in the Middle East and is one of the top 10 largest aluminium producers in the world. Originally incorporated in 1968, the company is based in Bahrain and 84% of its total workforce are Bahraini nationals. It began operations in 1971 with a 120,000 metric ton annual capacity. Modernization bumped the output up to 450,000 metric tons in 1992. In the spring of 2005, Alba opened Line 5, raising output by 860,000 metric tons per year. In 2018 Alba’s smelter produced 1,011,101 metric tons of primary aluminium.