The company is investing $29 million to expand low-carbon aluminum production in Quebec.

London-based metals and mining company Rio Tinto has announced that it will invest $29 million (CA$35 million) to construct an aluminum recycling facility at its Arvida plant in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec, allowing the company to expand its offering of low-carbon aluminum solutions for customers in the automotive, packaging and construction markets. The facility will add 30,000 metric tons of additional annual production capacity at the Arvida smelter.

The investment follows an investment of $188 million announced earlier this summer to increase production capacity for low-carbon-emissions aluminum billets at its Alma smelter by 202,000 metric tons. That investment does not include additional smelting capacity but instead focuses on transforming more of the metal already produced at the plant’s pot rooms into value-added products, according to the company.

Rio Tinto says aluminum scrap sourced locally from used vehicles and construction materials, such as windows and door frames, will be remelted to produce recycled content that will be used in aluminum billets at the Arvida smelter and in other products from Rio Tinto's facilities in Quebec.

"The new recycling center will allow for a percentage of recycled content to be included in the current production of aluminum billets at the Arvida plant but also in other products from our Quebec facilities (rolling ingots and casting alloys) destined for the automotive, packaging and construction markets," Malika Cherry, a media advisor for the U.S. and Canada with Rio Tinto, says. "Depending on the composition of the scrap, the remainder will be sent to other regional casting centers."

Cherry adds, "The aluminum used will come from clean postconsumer scrap, primarily from metal recyclers located in Quebec, which will reduce the environmental footprint even more. Discussions are still ongoing with potential recyclers."

“Investing in new recycling facilities in Arvida is another step in our strategy to expand our offering of low-carbon aluminum products and integrate the circular economy into our value chain,” says Rio Tinto Aluminum Managing Director of Atlantic Operations Sebastien Ross. “This will allow us to continue to meet our customers’ growing demand for responsible, traceable and responsible products.”

Rio Tino says it expects the recycling center to be operational in the second quarter of 2024. Construction will begin in the coming months, with a remelting furnace equipped with regenerative burners and an automated scrap loading system to be installed in an existing building at the Arvida plant.

The company says it expects the project to generate $23.05 million (CA$30 million) of economic benefits in Quebec and to create around 10 new permanent jobs at the Arvida plant.

In 2021, Rio Tinto commissioned a new remelting furnace at its Laterrière, Quebec, plant to recycle aluminum scrap from its internal operations and manufacturing customers to produce rolling ingots for the automotive and packaging industries. In 2020, the company partnered with Quebec-based Shawinigan Aluminium to offer its customers a closed-loop recycling solution to complement its low-carbon billet production.

In addition, Elysis, Rio Tinto's partnership with Alcoa supported by Apple and the governments of Canada and Quebec, is pursuing the development of a new smelting technology to produce aluminum without direct greenhouse gas emissions.

Paperboard producer issues profit warning for its recently completed fiscal year, citing inability to pass along higher raw materials costs.

Hong Kong-based recycled-content paperboard maker Nine Dragons Paper (Holdings) Ltd. has issued a profit warning for its fiscal year that ended June 30, citing finished board selling prices that did not rise as fast as raw materials prices.

“The board wishes to inform the shareholders of the company and potential investors that, based on the preliminary review of the management accounts of the group, if the exchange gains on operating and financing activities (net of tax) were excluded, the profit attributable to equity holders of the company for the year is expected to decrease not more than 60 percent as compared to the last year,” Nine Dragons board Chair Cheung Yan says.

In her letter dated Aug. 26, Yan adds, “The decrease [in profits] was mainly [because] the increase in the selling price of the products was much slower than the increase in the cost of raw materials with sales volume remain[ing] relatively stable amid the COVID-19 pandemic.”

She continues, “As the company is in the course of preparing its annual results for the Year, the information contained in this announcement is only a preliminary assessment by the board based on the information currently available.”

Yan adds, “Shareholders of the company and potential investors are advised to exercise caution when dealing in the shares of the company.”

In the 2000s and early 2010s, the Nine Dragons network of mills in China was one of the largest importers of old corrugated containers (OCC) and other recovered paper grades, bringing in millions of tons of material from the United States and Europe.

As China first tightened and then eliminated such imports, Nine Dragons has pivoted to domestic recovered paper supplies and has brought in semifinished pulp, including from facilities owned by its Illinois-based subsidiary ND Paper.

That strategy, along with siting new capacity in Malaysia, allowed Nine Dragons to record considerable profits earlier this decade. Earlier in 2022, however, the company was not able to take full advantage of lower global OCC pricing. As well, the late 2021 and first-half 2022 economy in China has been affected by intermittent COVID-19-related shutdowns and a slowdown in activity in the real estate construction sector.

Italy-based mill technology provider sells scrap-melting furnace equipment to five different Chinese steel companies.

Italy-based Danieli & C. Officine Meccaniche S.p.A. says it has received orders for eight of its Danieli Zerobucket electric arc furnaces (EAFs), adding the orders have been placed by five different Chinese steelmakers over the last six months.

Danieli lists the Chinese-based steel producers as Qiananshi Jiujiang, Hebei Puyang, Tangshan Zhongshou, Changshu Longteng and Zhejiang Yuxin. Danieli says each of the firms “selected the original Danieli horizontal, continuous scrap-charge system, which ensures smooth, endless hot-scrap charging.”

As China ramped up its steel output in the previous four decades, it relied largely on blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace (BOF) technology. This has led steel producers in other nations to criticize the Chinese sector’s considerable carbon footprint.

Other industry analysts have looked at China’s growing ferrous scrap generation and predicted that if the nation did not start soon installing more EAF capacity, it could become a significant net exporter of ferrous scrap.

The Zerobucket technology purchased allows for a range of charge mixes, including hot metal, direct-reduced iron (DRI), hot briquetted iron (HBI) and scrap, according to Danieli. The furnace can work with up to 80 percent of hot metal charge, “replacing BOF converters and obtaining outstanding results in terms of short tap-to-tap time, boosting the overall steelmaking plant productivity,” the company says.

The ordered furnaces will have capacities from 210 to 330 tons per hour and are expected to start operating between the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023.

Four of the EAFs were ordered by Tangshan, China-based Qiananshi Jiujiang, while the one ordered by Zhejiang Yuxin will be installed with what Danieli calls the first Tornado scrap conveyor system.

The Tornado, patented by Danieli, is described by the firm as a continuous scrap charge design that features a “variable-geometry preheating zone to automatically adjust and adapt the free cross-section, to create the optimal conditions for fume speed, temperature and process control.” The variable cross-section feature is designed to allow “the best pre-heating results with different scrap types available from the market, thus giving maximum purchase flexibility,” according to Danieli.

Effort could lead to dismantling work and scrap metal harvesting.

The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) says it has awarded an initial $560 million from the federal infrastructure law to 24 states to begin work to plug, cap and reclaim orphaned oil and gas wells.

The department says 22 states will receive $25 million each to go toward such work, while “Arkansas and Mississippi will receive $5 million each to support methane measurement and begin plugging wells.”

Eligible states have indicated there are more than 10,000 “high-priority” well sites across the country ready for immediate remediation efforts, according to the DOI, with “many more lined up for future action.”

Methane leaking from unplugged wells is called “a serious safety hazard and is a significant cause of climate change, being more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere,” the DOI says.

“At the Department of the Interior, we are working on multiple fronts to clean up these sites as quickly as we can by investing in efforts on federal lands and partnering with states and Tribes to leave no community behind,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland says. “Today’s announcement is exciting progress toward what we will accomplish together through this historic law.”

Initial plans of the states involved indicate: 15 states will utilize initial grant funding to set up methane measuring capacity while six states—including California, Mississippi and West Virginia—have committed to measuring methane before and immediately after remediation; 12 states—including Kansas, New Mexico and Ohio—have prioritized capping wells in disadvantaged communities; states including Arizona, Louisiana and Montana will prioritize job creation and preference to small businesses through their contracting process, according to the DOI.

As of 2021, states had identified more than 129,000 orphaned wells on state and private land, though that number could grow after further records research, improved well location techniques and increased site inspections and data collection nationwide. Kentucky and Oklahoma may have more than 1,000 such sites.

In the Western U.S., Montana-based scrap recycler Pacific Steel & Recycling has been involved with a not-for-profit called the Well Done Foundation (also based in Montana) to help dismantle dozens of orphaned oil and gas wells in that state.

India-based Nupur Recyclers to work with HeiTec Rohstoffe GmbH to source European scrap.

New Delhi-based Nupur Recyclers Ltd. (NRL) says it has entered into “strategy understanding agreement” with Germany-based HeiTec Rohstoffe GmbH designed to “strengthen and grow their metal businesses at the global level.”

The India-based metals recycling firm says, “Nupur Recyclers’ association with HeiTec Rohstoffe will drive [HeiTec’s] business growth nationally as the company sees India as one of the highest potential markets. This partnership integration carries the objective to bring innovation and advancement to the operational capabilities of metal recycling in India.”

NRL describes itself as a leading importer and processor of nonferrous scrap metal that seeks long-term suppliers. NRL lists nonferrous grades it seeks as “shredded zinc scrap, zinc die cast scrap, zurik scrap and aluminum zorba grades.”

HeiTec Rohstoffe is described by NRL as “a leading player in international trade dealing with ferrous and nonferrous metals, plastic scrap, metal-containing residual fractions” and other materials. “HeiTec Rohstoffe has set up a network of suppliers, customers, and partners for all the mentioned materials of any composition, spreading over Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Austria and Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia,” NRL adds.

“The partnership will benefit both the parties at the global level,” NRL founder and Managing Director Rajesh Gupta says. “NRL and HeiTec Rohstoffe through this strategic tie-up for business support, pursuant to which both parties have the responsibility towards each other to outgrow and support the business requirements of each other in all matters including procurement of qualitative raw material at competitive prices.”