Emirates Aluminium (Emal) has been awarded the prestigious GCC Industrial Project of the Year at the Meed Quality Awards for Projects 2012.

The award is in recognition of the successful completion of Phase I of the Al Taweelah-based smelter, which was delivered ahead of schedule and to budget, a statement from Emal said.

The prize was announced at an awards ceremony held recently at The Westin Resort in Abu Dhabi.

Saeed Fadhel Al Mazrooei, president and CEO, Emal, said: “This is an incredible award for Emal, following in the footsteps of an iconic project such as last year’s winner, the Burj Khalifa, is both humbling and a great honour.”

“It is recognition of all the hard work and commitment of all involved in successfully delivering such a complex industrial project,” he said. “It is also an endorsement of our leaders’ vision to create a future for the UAE beyond oil and gas. We can now move forward with Phase II.”

The awards are for projects fully completed, successfully operating and cover some of the biggest social and economic developments, the statement said. The projects are assessed for quality of design, planning and delivery upon completion.

“Meed were particularly impressed by the cross-Emirate cooperation involved in creating the smelter, a $5.7 billion joint venture between Mubadala and Dubal,” Al Mazrooei said. “Meed also cited the efforts made to preserve the natural habitat when building on the 6 sq km site.”

It took 90 million man hours to complete the project and over 18,000 workers were employed during construction.

Yousuf Abdulla Al Bastaki, of Emal VP projects, who received the award, said: “We put a lot of emphasis on our project plan for the Phase I development and ensured we had the right systems and values in place. It is a template we will use as we expand the smelter into one of the world’s largest single-site aluminium smelters, and prove to the world the outstanding performance of the UAE developed smelting technology.” – TradeArabia News Service