Aurubis seeks expanded role in recycling
Aurubis seeks expanded role in recycling
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“Our metals and products enable energy-efficient renewable technologies,” Aurubis CEO Roland Harings said in a speech at the Aurubis Annual General Meeting, Feb. 17. “Aurubis is a key success factor for the energy transition in Europe,” he said, adding that society must move toward a circular economy oriented to reusing raw materials.
Harings said Aurubis has the expertise and the solutions to do so, as demonstrated by lithium-ion battery recycling. “They contain nickel, cobalt, lithium and copper,” he said, adding that these are “metals that we know how to handle.”
According to the company, an average lithium-ion battery contains about 10 percent nickel. Also this week, the Aurubis Supervisory Board approved a 70 million euros ($79.5 million) investment at the Olen site in Belgium to enable the processing of more nickel-bearing materials.
Aurubis is building a pilot battery recycling plant at its Hamburg, Germany, site. The company says it expects to invest an estimated 200 million euros ($227.1 million) in an industrial-scale facility. “We want to play a leading role in this area, too. I’m firmly convinced that Aurubis will commission a facility for battery recycling within the next five years,” Harings said.
2021 marked the company’s most successful year in its history with a roughly 60 percent higher operating result of 353 million euros ($400.9 million) compared with the previous year, a strong increase in the return on capital employed (ROCE) from 9.3 percent to 15.6 percent and net cash flow of 812 million euros ($922.2 million). “These kinds of results couldn’t have been expected,” Harings said, noting the challenges Aurubis faced, such as the COVID pandemic, disrupted supply chains and energy price increases.
He said the company’s record results were because of positive market conditions as well as the strong performance of the smelter network’s plant facilities, the 80 million euros ($90.9 million) improvement from the successful cost reduction program and the significantly exceeded synergy target from the integration of the former Metallo Group. With the new sites in Belgium and Spain, Aurubis was able to expand its customer solutions and develop new initiatives like the approximately 30 million euros ($34.07 million) investment in a new hydrometallurgical facility (ASPA) at the Belgian plant in Beerse. This facility can process more precious metal-rich anode sludges even better.
In 2020/21, Harings said Aurubis processed more than 1 million metric tons of recyclables. “Our objective is for half of every copper cathode to come from recycled metal in 2030. Today, we’re already leading our industry with a recycling rate of 45 percent.”
With its newly updated strategy Metals for Progress: Driving Sustainable Growth, Aurubis says it continues to focus on recycling growth. Its investments include a new site in the U.S., construction of which will begin in early summer. The company is investing 300 million euros ($340.7 million) in this multimetal recycling plant. Starting in 2024, Aurubis Richmond (Georgia) will process 90,000 metric tons of recyclables annually.
Harings said he sees huge potential in the U.S. “Complex materials have been exported to Asia until now; or worse, simply landfilled. The U.S. recycling market needs Aurubis as a local outlet. For the U.S., it’s increasingly becoming a strategic issue of raw material security for the national economy.”
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Source: Recycling Today
Aurubis seeks expanded role in recycling
<![CDATA[“Our metals and products enable energy-efficient renewable technologies,” Aurubis CEO Roland Harings said in a speech at the Aurubis Annual General Meeting, Feb. 17. “Aurubis is a key success factor for the energy transition in Europe,” he said, adding that society must move toward a circular economy oriented to reusing raw materials.Harings said Aurubis has the expertise and the solutions to do so, as demonstrated by lithium-ion battery recycling. “They contain nickel, cobalt, lithium and copper,” he said, adding that these are “metals that we know how to handle.” According to the company, an average lithium-ion battery contains about 10 percent nickel. Also this week, the Aurubis Supervisory Board approved a 70 million euros ($79.5 million) investment at the Olen site in Belgium to enable the processing of more nickel-bearing materials.Aurubis is building a pilot battery recycling plant at its Hamburg, Germany, site. The company says it expects to invest an estimated 200 million euros ($227.1 million) in an industrial-scale facility. “We want to play a leading role in this area, too. I’m firmly convinced that Aurubis will commission a facility for battery recycling within the next five years,” Harings said.2021 marked the company’s most successful year in its history…