With aluminium prices at multi-year lows and little expectation of any improvement for the next 18 months at least, now could be a worrying time to be investing billions of dollars in new smelters. But, in keeping with the Gulf states’ oft-stated diversification strategies, aluminium executives in the region are confident that they will come out long-term winners.

The stakes are high. Large-scale smelters cost billions of dollars and the nature of aluminium production means that a smelter has to run at capacity or else shut down – and the costs of closure and then restarting are prohibitively high.