Alba’s marine jetty extension inaugurated

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Aluminium Bahrain B.S.C. (Alba)’s Chairman of the Board of Directors, Shaikh Daij bin Salman bin Daij Al Khalifa, inaugurated the Company’s Marine Jetty Extension in a ceremony that was held on Monday 30 August 2021, with the presence of Alba’s Chief Executive Officer, Ali Al Baqali, and other Company’s officials.

The ceremony marked the successful completion of a master project that aimed to upgrade the existing Marine facility and expand its capacity to meet the Company’s increased production following the commissioning of Reduction Line 6, which boosted Alba’s overall output by more than 50%.

As part of this project, the North Jetty at Alba’s Marine was extended by 24 metres to accommodate bigger ships such as 60,000 tonnes Panamax alumina vessels and be able to receive more than 3 million metric tonnes of alumina per annum. Moreover, the Jetty was equipped with a state-of-the-art Dual-Purpose Vacuum Ship-Unloader which will enable the Company to faster discharge its raw materials and gain additional days for routine maintenance work on site.

In addition to the upgrades made at the Jetty, a new 50,000-tonne alumina concrete storage silo was built at Alba’s Marine bringing the total alumina storage to 3 silos on-site with a total built-in capacity of 150,000 tonnes. A new Truck Loading Station was added on top of the existing one at the site. The Marine Terminal upgrades were necessary to be on the very top, meet Alba’s additional requirements and support the business operations round-the-clock.

The Marine Jetty extension project was constructed over a period of 2.5 years and maintained the highest safety standards by achieving 1.6 million safe working hours without a single loss time injury (LTI).

On this occasion, Alba’s Chairman of the Board of Directors, Shaikh Daij bin Salman bin Daij Al Khalifa, said:

“Today marks an important milestone, not only for our Marine Terminal but also for Alba.

With the seamless infrastructure of our Marine operations, Alba will strengthen its competitiveness in the global Aluminium industry all the while support Bahrain Vision 2030. This expansion marks our commitment to secure importing additional raw materials following the successful completion of Line 6 Expansion Project in 2019 which has made Alba the largest smelter in the world ex-China with a built-in production capacity of more than 1.5 million metric tonnes per annum.

I take the opportunity to thank each and every employee, contractor and partner for their contribution to the safe and successful completion of this project.”

Alba’s Chief Executive Officer, Ali Al Baqali, added:

“We managed to finish the Jetty-upgrade and related facilities on time especially as our Marine Terminal never stopped its operations during the construction work. The basis for this success story goes to our team unique capabilities and know-how in overseeing the upgrade all the while making sure that Marine Terminal continued to meet Alba’s requirements for smooth operations.”

The inauguration ceremony was held in compliance with the directives of the National Medical Taskforce for Combatting COVID-19, and it was attended by members of Alba’s Executive Management, Directors and involved Project team members.