Hammerer Aluminium Industries Builds 44 Mio EUR Aluminium Recycling Plant In Arad

Paula Bulzan, Arad

Austrian-based Hammerer Aluminium Industries (HAI) on Friday started construction works on an aluminium recycling plant near Santana, Arad County, on a 44 million EUR budget. Representatives of Hammerer Aluminium Industries GmbH and of local and county authorities laid the cornerstone of the plant during a ceremony held in Santana on Friday. The plant is designed to process 75,000 tonnes of aluminium per year. Initial projections indicate the creation of over 80 jobs and an annual turnover of 75 million EUR.

"This greenfield project is a premiere in Romania as it uses the latest technology to process aluminium waste. The implementation of this project will stimulate people to collect and sort aluminium waste. The finished product consists of cylinders for extruded profiles," said Juergen Hammerer, the owner of HAI. He added that, depending on the success of the first plant and the global economic context, the company could increase the production capacity and expand to other types of aluminium processing operations.

Rob van Gils, the CEO of the plant in Santana, stated that the smelting and casting technology was one of the best available in the world and fully in line with European regulations. "The technological process does not consume mineral resources as over 75% of the raw materials come from waste processing. One of the advantages of this technology is that the emissions generated from smelting the aluminium waste are much lower compared to the emissions generated by smelting bauxite," van Gils said.

He emphasized the importance of being able to use the energy already incorporated in the raw material in order to significantly reduce energy consumption, compared to the effort of producing aluminium from ore. "Only 5% of the energy necessary to produce aluminium from bauxite is used in the technological process implemented in our plant in Santana," van Gils said.

Hammerer Aluminium Industries GmbH, headquartered in Ranshoffen, Austria, has been recycling aluminium waste into cylinders for extruded profiles for over 15 years. Half of the production is processed in the company"s proprietary extrusion unit. With a turnover of more than 200 million EUR and over 400 employees, the company produces over 110,000 tonnes of aluminium products per year.