The Middle East's largest aluminum company reports that after an attack on their factory, it has experienced an "out-of-control shutdown" and has already begun selling aluminum raw materials.

China Finance News, April 2 (Edited by Shi Zhengcheng) The latest market news indicates that the Al Taweelah (Al Taweelah) smelter, a unit of United Arab Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) located at the Taweelah production base, was attacked last weekend, resulting in a power outage caused by the runaway shutdown of its smelting equipment.

As background, late on Saturday Beijing time, UAE Global Aluminium issued a statement saying that earlier that day, its Taweelah production facility in the Khalifa Economic Zone in Abu Dhabi was struck by Iranian missiles and drones, suffering severe damage.

Although the official has not publicly disclosed the progress of the damage assessment since then, international aluminum prices have continued to rise since the weekend and are approaching their highest levels since 2022. In addition to UAE Global Aluminium, Bahrain Aluminium, another major regional aluminum producer, also confirmed that its facilities were attacked over the weekend. Both plants are among the world’s largest aluminum smelters, with expected 2025 production of 1.6 million tons each.

On Wednesday evening, media reports citing informed sources stated that the Taweelah smelter in Abu Dhabi’s outskirts experienced a power outage during last week’s attack, and equipment known as “potlines” was forced into runaway shutdown, causing the metal within the smelting circuit to solidify and severely damaging production and operations.

Regarding this situation, Natixis SA analyst Bernard Dahdah hypothesized in a recent report that the metal solidification in the smelting process may require at least one year to repair. This could cause the aluminum market next year to shift from a surplus of 200,000 tons to a supply deficit of approximately 1.3 million tons.

Supporting this intelligence, earlier on Wednesday, reports indicated that UAE Global Aluminium has begun large-scale sales of alumina in the market, which is a key raw material for aluminum production.

It is understood that UAE Global Aluminium has proposed to sell several batches of alumina expected to be shipped between April and June. The aluminum supply chain can be simply described as mining bauxite, refining it into alumina, and then smelting it into finished metal.

UAE Global Aluminium is capable of producing alumina itself and usually also purchases large quantities of this raw material to supply the Taweelah smelter in Abu Dhabi and a second smelter located in Dubai.