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IHC is making the largest foreign investment ever for India’s metals sector. The mining arm of Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Company (IHC), International Resources Holding (IRH), has signed an MoU alongside Adani Enterprises with the Odisha state government to build an USD 11.5 bn integrated aluminum complex through a 50:50 JV, according to a statement. It’s the biggest single commitment IHC has made to its four-year Adani relationship, and the second Adani JV of 2026.
The buildout: The facility will feature a 4 mn tons per annum (tpa) alumina refinery, a 2 mn tpa aluminum smelter, a 4k MW captive power plant, and a 1 mn tpa downstream manufacturing park. USD 7 bn will go to phase one, with USD 4.7 bn going to phase two. Odisha — home to some of India’s largest bauxite reserves and 54% of national aluminum output — will fast-track land, power, and water clearances.
The UAE-India corridor is ramping up: This investment comes just weeks after Emirates NBD closed its USD 2.8 bn acquisition of a 60% controlling stake in RBL Bank, marking the largest foreign direct investment ever in India's banking sector, and the first time a foreign bank has taken majority control of a profitable Indian lender. Between the two transactions, UAE institutions have now put more than USD 14 bn into India's banking and metals sectors in barely a year — and both arrived as India and the UAE work toward more than doubling bilateral trade to USD 200 bn in bilateral trade by 2032.
The demand case
India is the world's second-largest aluminum producer and third-largest consumer — it made 4.2 mn tons in FY 2025 against consumption of 5.5 mn tons, with per-capita use still at 3.4-3.9 kg versus a global average of 8-12 kg. A government aluminum-vision document projects domestic consumption climbing to 8.5 mn tons by FY 2030 and more than tripling to 28 mn tons by 2047, which would require national capacity to scale to 37 mn tpa. That gap is the commercial logic for IHC underwriting a plant this size rather than buying into an existing producer.
