Dubai to get world's biggest aluminium processing plant

Dubai: India-headquartered Darvesh Group, which operates several businesses in the UAE, said yesterday it will launch the world's biggest aluminium processing plant in Dubai.

The company plans to invest Dh3 billion in the plant, which will have a capacity of 135,000 tonnes per year when fully completed in 2010, Darvesh Group director Ahsan Hassan Darvesh said.

Called Noval, the plant will source raw aluminium from Gulf-based companies such as Dubal and Alba and make finished goods for the construction and packaging industries.

The company hopes to be able to source the metal at competitive prices as the region will produce 10 per cent of the world's aluminium when new smelters come onstream in the UAE, Oman and Qatar.

"Noval will be the world's largest plant in aluminium processing capacity. Due to manufacturing growth in the region we see big demand for packaging materials," Darvesh said.

Composite panels

At present the world's largest such facility is in Germany and has a capacity of 110,000 tonnes.

Noval will produce sheets for aluminium composite panels used in construction, pharmaceutical packaging material, home foils, semi-rigid containers for food packaging and lamination foils.

Darvesh has acquired a land plot of one million square feet in Dubai Industrial City for the plant.

Construction is scheduled to start in July and production will start by the end of 2008. The entire project will be completed in three phases in 2010.