Emirates Aluminum Standardizes on Intergraph® SmartPlant® Foundation for World's Largest Single-Site Smelter

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Emirates Aluminum Co. Ltd. (EMAL) has selected Intergraph® SmartPlant® Foundation as its standard life cycle document and data management solution for the operation of the world's largest single-site aluminum smelter in Al Taweelah, Abu Dhabi.

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The US$5.7 billion, six square-kilometer site project is making history by being the largest greenfield aluminum smelter project ever built at once and one of the largest industrial projects in the UAE outside the oil and gas sector.

SmartPlant Foundation will help EMAL manage the vast amount of engineering data that is needed for such a large project. EMAL will organize its plant data using SmartPlant Foundation and integrate it with existing maintenance systems to optimize operations and efficiency over the life cycle of the smelter. By preserving the integrity of the data, EMAL will avoid redundancy and save valuable time and money.

EMAL chose SmartPlant Foundation because of its superior technical and data integration capabilities, widespread industry adoption and ability to scale for large projects. Intergraph's local distributor, ATHEEB Intergraph Middle East LLC, was instrumental in EMAL standardizing on SmartPlant Foundation and will be providing support services for this and future projects.

SmartPlant Foundation is the ISO15926-compliant document and data management solution within Intergraph's SmartPlant Enterprise. Its life cycle data management enables a smoother handover for engineering, procurement and construction companies (EPCs) to owner operators and for owner operators to more easily maintain, modify or expand their plants. The solution permits electronic management of all project and plant engineering information, integrating data on the physical asset, work processes, and regulatory and safety imperatives to facilitate enhanced global decision support capabilities.

"We're using SmartPlant Foundation (SPF) because it allows us to easily transfer data throughout the systems in phase one of the EMAL Smelter," said Salman Abdulla, EMAL Vice President, Operations. "SPF provides a complete solution for sharing engineering data and integrates document management with engineering tools. Local support from Intergraph's Abu Dhabi office will help us to achieve a well managed and integrated electronic data/document management system."

Gerhard Sallinger, Intergraph Process, Power and Marine president, said, "SmartPlant Foundation is the industry standard solution for managing tremendous amounts of data over the lifetime of a project and is well-suited for the most challenging capital projects, such as the world's biggest aluminum smelter."  

The Taweelah smelter project consists of two phases. Phase one started production in December 2009 and once finished EMAL will produce 750,000 tonnes of aluminium per annum and 1.5 million tonnes annually at the end of phase two. 

The ARC Advisory Group, a leading industry analyst firm, ranked Intergraph the No. 1 overall engineering design 3D software and process engineering tools (PET) provider worldwide according to its PET Worldwide Outlook Market Analysis and Forecast through 2013.

About EMAL

EMAL is a joint venture (JV) between Dubai Aluminium Company Limited (DUBAL) and Mubadala Development Company (Mubadala) and was established in February 2007 to construct what will become the world's largest single site aluminium smelter complex.  The project will be built in two phases and utilise DUBAL DX technology. Phase one started production in December 2009 and once finished EMAL will produce 750,000 tonnes of aluminium per annum and 1.5 million tonnes annually at the end of phase two.  The aluminium complex, a 6sq km site in the Khalifa Port Industrial Zone in Al Taweelah, half way between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, will produce primary aluminium with a product mix of sow, standard ingot, tee ingot, extrusion billet and sheet ingot.

Being the largest industrial project in the UAE outside the oil and gas industry, the project will encourage economic diversification, creating downstream opportunities.  This development will benefit the UAE economy, employing more than 17,000 local and international contractors/staff during construction and approximately 2,000 people direct employment during operations.

EMAL adheres to strict environmental standards set by the Abu Dhabi Environmental Agency, with state-of the-art emission control equipment including sulphur-dioxide scrubbers, the latest potroom gas treatment technology, the best-available gas turbine systems, and cooling towers to eliminate thermal stress on local marine life.

About Intergraph

Intergraph is the leading global provider of engineering and geospatial software that enables customers to visualize complex data. Businesses and governments in more than 60 countries rely on Intergraph's industry-specific software to organize vast amounts of data into understandable visual representations and actionable intelligence. Intergraph's software and services empower customers to build and operate more efficient plants and ships, create intelligent maps, and protect critical infrastructure and millions of people around the world.

Intergraph operates through two divisions: Process, Power & Marine (PP&M) and Security, Government & Infrastructure (SG&I).  Intergraph PP&M provides enterprise engineering software for the design, construction and operation of plants, ships and offshore facilities. Intergraph SG&I provides geospatially-powered solutions to the defense and intelligence, public safety and security, government, transportation, photogrammetry, utilities, and communications industries. For more information, visit www.intergraph.com.

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SOURCE Intergraph