Dubai Aluminium recently received the Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits for a greenhouse gases project registered under the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

Abdulla Kalban, president and CEO of Dubal, received the certificate from Dr Rashid Ahmad bin Fahad, UAE Minister of Environment and Water.

The carbon-credit project involves Dubal’s Casthouse operations, which has four melting furnaces fitted with conventional cold air burners, which are used to melt cold/hot metal at specified rates.

Cold air burners work on the principle of an air-to-gas ratio where air and gas are fed through on a proportionate basis. These conventional cold burners will now be replaced with more energy-efficient regenerative burners during the second quarter of this year – an exercise that will reduce gas consumption, thereby lowering Dubal’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

The project follows a pilot initiative whereby a regenerative burner was installed in one of the melting furnaces during 2008/2009. Records show that the furnace’s gas consumption levels declined by 39 per cent.

Kalban said “Dubal endorses the widely accepted view that the most common GHG is CO2, which is therefore also the main cause of global warming and climate change. The installation of regenerative burners in our melting furnaces forms part of our 2015 Carbon Management Strategy and Implementation Plan, which aims to reduce the size of Dubal’s carbon footprint.”

“The plan outlines how Dubal will undertake programmes to raise awareness about climate change and carbon emissions; implement systems to measure our emissions; identify carbon reduction and abatement options; and continually reduce carbon emissions from every aspect of our business – using pre-determined, quantifiable targets to measure our progress.

“In the past three years Dubal has, through various initiatives, saved 900 000 tonnes of CO2. We’ve also achieved a 54 per cent reduction (145,000 tonnes) in Dubal’s emissions of perfluorcarbon gases – compounds that have greenhouse gas warming potential that is up to 9,200 times greater than CO2 – over the same timeframe.

“We are confident that the installation of the regenerative burners will deliver substantial results, contributing to even greater reductions in Dubal’s CO2 emission levels,” he added. – TradeArabia News Service