Novelis, the world leader in aluminum rolling and recycling, today celebrated the roofing of its $250 million aluminum recycling and casting center at its plant in Nachterstedt, Germany, with building construction partner Köster GmbH.
Located adjacent to the company’s existing aluminum rolling mill, the new center will produce up to 400,000 metric tons of aluminum sheet ingot from recycled material annually, and is projected to be the world’s largest aluminum recycling center.
“Installation of the roof is an important milestone for this major project, which remains on track for completion in July 2014,” said Erwin Mayr, President, Novelis Europe. “Interior work will begin immediately and equipment installation will begin this fall.”
The new center will support the company’s drive to increase end-of-life recycling in Europe, where Novelis is already the leading recycler of aluminum beverage cans. The center will process used beverage cans as well as numerous other forms of aluminum scrap from across continental Europe. Novelis expects the center to create 200 new jobs when it is commissioned next year.
“This investment represents another step in delivering on our commitment to dramatically increase the recycled content of the rolled aluminum we provide to our global customers, while also signifying our long-term commitment to the European market,” added Mayr. “The advanced sorting, processing and casting capabilities of the new Nachterstedt operation will propel us closer to our global goal of 80 percent recycled content by 2020.”
Mayr was joined at the roofing ceremony by Dr. Reiner Haseloff, First Minister of the State of Saxony-Anhalt, who stated, “The investment is a positive sign for the job market in Saxony-Anhalt. At the same time, it underlines the great importance attached to foreign investors in our federal state. I am happy that Novelis, an important global company, has once again significantly expanded its involvement through this new investment.”
“We very much appreciate the confidence Novelis has placed in us and our work,” says Raik Szelenko, Managing Director of Köster GmbH. “At the same time, this trust serves as an incentive for us. As a reliable construction partner, our objective is to completely fulfill the expectations of our customers, and create the structural requirements for the further success of Novelis at the Nachterstedt site.”
The Nachterstedt expansion is the latest in a series of recycling and casting expansion projects launched by Novelis over the past two years totalling nearly $450 million, including the commissioning last year of the company’s new integrated recycling and casting center in Yeongju, Korea. These projects, and others underway across the world, are designed to increase Novelis’ recycling and casting capacity to 2.1 million tons by 2015.
By increasing recycled metal input, Novelis saves valuable natural resources, while enabling its customers to create products with a smaller environmental footprint. Using recycled aluminum as input material requires only five percent of the energy used to make primary aluminum from raw materials, thus avoiding 95 percent of the greenhouse gases associated with production.
Facts about the construction site
Novelis and its construction partner, Köster GmbH, are building the the new recycling plant and administrative building in a period of construction lasting 17 months. The foundry, the heart of the plant, required a depth of 30 meters and highly technical solutions to secure the excavation.
In total, 55,000 m² of covered area is being built in Nachterstedt, which corresponds to almost 350 single-family homes. Each column used in the building structure is 28 meters high and weighs up to 85 tons. More than 40,000 m³ of earth was excavated; 12,000 m³ of concrete were processed; and 150 roof trusses were installed through this point in construction.
Source: http://www.novelis.com