Aluminium Bahrain, or Alba, which owns the world’s fourth-largest aluminium smelter, said on Sunday it received two loans from banks to refinance a US$169 million bond maturing in March 2013.

Alba, 69 per cent owned by Bahraini sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat and 20 per cent by the Saudi government, said it obtained a five-year $85m loan from Abu Dhabi’s First Gulf Bank, according to a statement on the Bahrain bourse.

The company also received a three-year $84m loan from a group of banks including Ahli United Bank, National Bank of Bahrain, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait and Arab Banking Corporation.

Alba earlier in December said it had hired Bechtel Canada to conduct a feasibility study for its proposed $2.5 billion expansion plan to add a sixth production line.

The new line – which will add 400,000 tonnes annual capacity to its current production of 881,000 tonnes a year – could be completed by early 2015.

* Reuters