Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), the Bahrain-based aluminium smelter, received a high-level delegation from General Electric (GE) Power on August 15 at Al Dana Hall, Alba.

Led by the president and chief executive officer of GE Gas Power Systems (GPS) Chuck Nugent, the delegation comprised the chief executive officer of GE Turkey Canan Ozsoy, President and chief executive officer of GE GPS Projects MEI Mohamad Ali and the chief executive officer of GAMA Holdings Evren Unver, said a statement from Alba.

The delegates were received by Alba’s deputy chief executive officer Ali Al Baqali; chief marketing officer Khalid A Latif; chief power officer Amin Sultan; chief administration officer Waleed Tamimi along with other officials from Alba, it said.

The delegation was briefed about Alba’s historical background, its achievements and importance to Bahrain’s economy then accompanied in a tour to Power Station 5 site, it added.

Al Baqali said: “Our flagship project, Line 6 Expansion Project, is under way especially as we have on-boarded the last batch of new recruits in June.”
 
“We are pleased to share the progress made-to-date on the Power Expansion Project with GE officials; we also trust that our EPC contractor, GE-GAMA, will continue their intensive commissioning effort to meet the pouring of First Hot Metal on January 1, 2019,” he added.

Nugent said: “We have a strong and long-term partnership with Alba, which has set a global first by deploying GE Power’s advanced H-Class turbine, the world’s largest and most efficient gas turbine for the first time in the region and in the aluminium smelting industry.”

“The H-Class technology will help Alba increase its power capacity to support its smelter expansion, and we will work alongside the team providing maintenance coverage, onsite support, digital remote support and other efficiency measures,” he added.

“We are also committed to advancing Alba’s vision to become the world’s largest single-site smelter. We are progressing Power Station 5 to support Alba’s goal of First Hot Metal by January 1, 2019,” Nugent concluded.

In line with the Kingdom’s 2030 Economic Vision, the Line 6 Expansion Project has created around 500 permanent direct jobs in Alba and will boost the downstream cluster by creating indirectly few thousand job opportunities. To-date, the company is proactively training the new hires to be ready to operate Line 6 smelter and PS 5 facilities as the construction nears completion.

Line 6 Expansion Project will bring Alba’s total production capacity to 1.5 million metric tonnes per year making it the world’s largest single-site aluminium smelter, it stated. – TradeArabia News Service