Alba recently extended its support worth $10,000 to a major global conference on petcoke in Dubai, which looked at the implications of the gradual shift of the petcoke industry from the West to the East.

The second annual Asian Petcoke Conference, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Dubai, held under the theme 'Impending Change', examined how this change impacted the industry as a whole.

"Alba is proud to support this conference that examined the implications of the potential shift of the petcoke industry's centre of operations from the West to the East," said chief executive officer Laurent Schmitt.

"With distinguished speakers from across the world, the conference provided a platform to discuss some of the evolving strategies, new paradigms and challenges that would accompany any change.

"In the past 40 years, Alba has been one of the pioneers in the industry and is credited to be one of two aluminium smelters in the world to have a dedicated petroleum coke calciner plant,” he added.

Alba's petroleum coke calciner plant was commissioned in May 2001 at its marine terminal.

Annual production of calcined petroleum coke is 550,000 metric tonnes. It is used as a major raw material in the production of carbon anodes for the aluminium smelting process. The plant strengthens Alba's strategy of self-reliance and eliminates the need to import calcined coke. – TradeArabia News Service