IHC, Adani tie up for USD 11.5 bn aluminum venture in India

The mining arm of Abu Dhabi's International Holding Company (IHC), International Resources Holding (IRH), is making a major aluminum play in India, signing an MoU alongside Adani Enterprises with the Odisha state government to build an USD 11.5 bn integrated aluminum manufacturing complex in eastern India through a 50:50 joint venture, according to a statement.

It's the largest foreign investment India's metals sector has ever seen — and the biggest single commitment IHC has made to the Adani relationship since the pair first partnered in 2022.

Buildout plan: 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. The project will roll out in two phases, with the first phase accounting for roughly USD 7 bn of the investment and the second getting the remaining c.USD 4.7 bn, per the JV statement.

The government in Odisha — which holds some of India’s largest bauxite reserves and already accounts for 54% of national aluminium output — will fast-track land, power, and water clearances.

Why it matters

IHC has had big plans for India, and has been diversifying hard, from a reinsurance platform to an AED stablecoin project with ADQ and First Abu Dhabi Bank, from a USD 998 mn stake in Indian housing financier Sammaan Capital to a majority stake in Pakistan's First Women Bank. IRH already holds Zambia's Mopani Copper Mines and has separately signed MoUs with Indian state-owned miners on critical minerals.

The Abu Dhabi firm said last year it plans to deploy USD 110 bn in India over the next five years across data centers, renewables, nuclear power, and infrastructure. It’s already partnered with Adani previously on digitization and energy, despite later trimming some of these positions, and with Haldiram Snacks Foods. As recently as earlier this year, IHC unit ePointZero formed a joint venture with Adani Green Energy to develop renewable projects across India — the Odisha JV is the second Adani tie-up IHC has struck in 2026 alone.

The move also lands weeks after the UAE's most consequential India move to date: Emirates NBD completed a USD 2.8 bn acquisition of a 60% controlling stake in RBL Bank last month, marking the largest foreign direct investment India's banking sector has ever recorded, 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, from the USD 100 bn-plus it crossed for the second straight year in FY 2025-26.

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.