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COMPANY NEWS WORLDWIDE
by the Indonesian government in November.
The refinery will process bauxite from the
Harita’s mines. The company owns 26 mining
permits in West Kalimantan, with proven
bauxite reserves of some 700m tonnes. Harita
owns 30% of Well Harvest through its subsidiary
Cita Mineral Investindo, while Hongqiao
owns the rest.
n
Secondary smelting and recycling
products, in sizes compatible with the largest
aluminium aerospace components in service
today. The Lafayette expansion should be
completed and online by the end of 2014.
Alcoa’s new aluminium-lithium alloys combine
the best strength-to-weight performance
with better stiffness, damage tolerance and
corrosion resistance.
© Hydro
Oetinger goes into administration
Secondary aluminium company Oetinger from
Germany has made a request to begin insolvency
proceedings. The company made the
request for its four German units in Weißenhorn,
Hanover, Berlin and Neu-Ulm. The company’s
French unit, Affinage de Lorraine, will
not be affected. Oetinger is Europe’s largest
foundry aluminium producer, with a production
of 300,000 tpy. The market can hardly
accept the loss of this capacity. This will be
the prime role of the insolvency administrator:
to ensure that the works keep on running.
Novelis celebrates roofing ceremony
for its recycling plant in Germany
Novelis Inc. has celebrated the roofing of its
USD250m aluminium recycling and casting
centre at its plant in Nachterstedt, Germany.
Located adjacent to the company’s existing
aluminium rolling mill, the new centre will
produce up to 400,000 tpy of aluminium sheet
ingot from recycled material. It is projected
to be the world’s largest aluminium recycling
centre, which remains on track for completion
in July 2014. The centre will process used beverage
cans as well as numerous other forms of
aluminium scrap from across continental Europe.
Novelis expects the centre to create 200
new jobs when commissioned in 2014.
The Nachterstedt expansion is the latest
in a series of recycling and casting expansion
projects launched by Novelis over the past two
years. These total nearly USD450m, including
the commissioning in 2012 of the company’s
new integrated recycling and casting
centre in Yeongju, Korea. These projects, and
others underway across the world, are designed
to increase Novelis’ recycling and casting
capacity to 2.1m tonnes by 2015.
Alcoa completes aluminium-lithium
expansion project in UK
Alcoa has completed the expansion of aluminium
lithium alloy capacity at its Kitts Green
facility in the UK to serve the growing demand
for the company’s third generation aluminium
lithium alloys. Alcoa projects its aluminium
lithium revenues will quadruple over the next
six years to nearly USD200m. The Kitts Green
expansion was the second phase of Alcoa’s
three-part expansion programme to satisfy
customer demand for advanced aerospace
products and patented alloys, which allow
aircraft manufacturers to build more fuel-efficient
and lower-cost airplanes than with composite
alternatives.
Alcoa upgraded and expanded casting capacity
at the Kitts Green plant, and also expanded
capacity at its technology centre in
Pennsylvania by 30%. The third phase of the
expansion is a new USD90m facility under
construction adjacent to the company’s plant
in Lafayette, Indiana, that will provide an additional
20,000 tonnes of aluminium-lithium.
The new facility will supply round and rectangular
ingot for rolled, extruded and forged
Constellium seeks buyer
for plant in France
Paris-based Constellium is seeking a buyer
for its precision castings operations in Ussel,
France. The company hopes to find a buyer
committed to the facility’s future development,
but it could not predict the terms under
which a deal might be concluded, or what any
potential buyers’ plans for the plant might be.
But Constellium plans to retain the Ussel plant
if no “suitable buyer” is found. The Ussel plant
employs about 230 people, and it recorded
revenues of €26m (USD34m) in 2012. The
company as a whole reported 2012 revenues
of €3.6bn.
Boeing and Alcoa to boost recycling
of aluminium aerospace alloys
Boeing and Alcoa have formed a closed-loop
programme to significantly increase the recycling
of internal aluminium aerospace alloys
used in Boeing airplanes. The programme will
entail inter-modal transport of aluminium alloy
scrap, including advanced alloys, from
Boeing facilities in Auburn and Wichita, and
from third-party processors in Auburn, to
Alcoa’s Lafayette facility in Indiana. The programme
calls for melting and recycling into
new aerospace materials of aluminium alloys
(2xxx and 7xxx series) used in the production
of wing and fuselage components of Boeing
airplanes. The forms will include aluminium
extrusions, sheet and plate products, amounting
at the outset to 3,630 tpy.
The new programme also lays the groundwork
for extending the recycling system to
Boeing sub-contractors, and later including
other aluminium scrap forms, such as chips
that remain after the machining of parts.
Alcoa facility to cut in half energy used
to recycle aluminium for forged wheels
Alcoa has announced that its USD21m Wheel
and Transportation Products casthouse expansion
at its Barberton plant in Ohio is expected
68 ALUMINIUM · 7-8/2013