Novelis, the world leader in aluminum rolling and recycling, today announced the opening of a new aluminum recycling and continuous casting line at its Pieve Emanuele facility in Milan, Italy. The 12 million euro expansion represents the largest single investment by Novelis in Italy in the past decade and is a key part of the company's drive to enhance the competitiveness of its Italian operations.
The advanced technology incorporated into the new line leverages the plant's expertise in continuous casting and will enable the company to recycle aluminum scrap into high quality aluminum sheet for further processing at its operations in Italy and Germany. Aluminum is infinitely recyclable, and the recycling process uses only five percent of the energy required to make the metal from raw materials while also avoiding 95 percent of the greenhouse gases associated with primary aluminum production.
"This investment reflects Novelis' ongoing commitment to our high recycled content strategy, to the environment and, importantly, to our longstanding operations here in Italy," said Erwin Mayr , Senior Vice President of Novelis and President of Novelis Europe. "The opening of the new line not only increases the recycling and casting capacity at the Pieve plant, but it also contributes to the company's global goal of increasing the recycled content of its products from 43 percent today to 80 percent by 2020."
"The Pieve plant has over 50 years of experience in rolling and recycling aluminum," said Gianmatteo Martinelli, Plant Manager. "This investment and the wider program in Italy will strengthen our operations here while also bringing new sustainable manufacturing processes to the region through Novelis innovation."
"Furthermore," added Martinelli, "the new line will also enable our Pieve plant to supply more recycled sheet to our operations in other parts of Europe, generating significant logistical and environmental advantages."
The Novelis plant at Pieve Emanuele is an integrated recycling, continuous casting, rolling and finishing operation. The aluminum sheet and coil produced at the facility is sold to end users in a number of industrial and construction markets. The Pieve plant also supplies aluminum sheet to other Novelis plants in Bresso, Italy and Germany, where it is processed into pre-painted, textured and bright finish material for use in transportation, construction and industrial applications such as roofing, architectural cladding and domestic appliances. The expanded capacity in Italy also frees up capacity elsewhere in the Novelis Europe system that is needed for use in growth markets. Novelis Italy currently employs approximately 400 people at its plants in Pieve and Bresso.
The state-of-the-art continuous casting equipment used on the new line was developed by Novelis PAE, a Novelis group company which provides premium casting and molten metal treatment solutions for aluminum producers around the world.
Source: http://www.novelis.com/