Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), a leader in global aluminium production, as well as one of the largest companies in the UAE, has announced a significant expansion of its key facility in Germany - EGA Leichtmetall.

The new facility, located near Hannover, will help boost EGA Leichtmetall’s recycling capacity more than six-fold, adding 110,000 tonnes per year of scrap sorting capacity and 153,000 tonnes per year of melting and casting capacity.

The project represents an investment of approximately $170 million, with first hot metal expected in 2028.

EGA Leichtmetall’s existing Hannover site has melting and casting capacity of around 30 thousand tonnes per year.

The planned new facility will be among the first in the world to combine a state-of-the-art scrap sorting system, advanced furnace technologies, and an integrated salt recovery process in a single location.

EGA also operates EGA Spectro Alloys in Minnesota, in the United States, where the first phase of an expansion was recently completed featuring similar sorting technologies. 

The Emirati group said a second phase is underway that will increase the EGA Spectro Alloys plant’s total capacity to 200,000 tonnes per year during 2027. 

In the UAE, EGA’s construction of the country’s largest aluminium recycling plant is nearing completion.

CEO Abdulnasser Bin Kalbanium, said: "It is technically very challenging to consistently produce high quality aluminium from post-consumer scrap, but this is what European industries such as automotive and aviation are increasingly demanding to meet consumer expectations for product performance and sustainability. Our new EGA Leichtmetall aluminium recycling plant will be one of the most advanced in the world."

"It will enable post-consumer scrap to be considered more often for the most demanding applications, and it will grow EGA’s role as a partner for a green Europe. We will apply our experience from expanding our Minnesota recycling plant to this new project in Germany," he stated.

Europe is the third-largest recycled aluminium market globally, after the United States and China. Recycled aluminium currently meets around 40 per cent of Europe’s total aluminium demand, with consumption of approximately 4.9 million tonnes annually. 

According to CRU, demand is expected to grow to 7.2 million tonnes per year by 2033.

A major player in the region, EGA is also a key supplier of primary aluminium to Europe, shipping over 600,000 tonnes annually. The European automotive industry is the largest consumer of EGA’s CelestiAL solar aluminium.

The new EGA Leichtmetall plant will feature advanced sorting systems using X-ray and laser technologies to separate scrap by alloy, grade, and impurity level, it stated. 

This will increase flexibility in scrap input and allow EGA Leichtmetall to apply its decades of blending expertise to produce high-quality aluminium from post-consumer scrap for the first time.

The facility will deploy energy-efficient melting furnaces, designed to convert to hydrogen use in the future. Its casting line will produce secondary ingots in nearly all wrought alloys, as well as low and high iron content foundry alloys, he added.-TradeArabia News Service