EGA announces expansion of EGA Leichtmetall in Germany
The expansion project represents an investment of approximately US $170mn, with first hot metal expected in 2028
Emirates Global Aluminium has announced the expansion of EGA Leichtmetall in Germany. The new facility, located near Hannover, will increase EGA Leichtmetall’s recycling capacity more than six-fold, adding 110,000t per year of scrap sorting capacity and 153,000t per year of melting and casting capacity.
The project represents an investment of approximately US $170mn, with first hot metal expected in 2028. EGA Leichtmetall’s existing Hannover site has melting and casting capacity of around 30,000t per year. The planned new facility will be among the first in the world to combine a 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. A second phase is underway that will increase the EGA Spectro Alloys plant’s total capacity to 200,000t per year during 2027. In the UAE, EGA’s construction of the country’s largest aluminium recycling plant is nearing completion.
Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Global Aluminium 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.”
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. 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.
In aluminium recycling, salt is used to bind impurities during melting, generating salt slag as waste. At EGA Leichtmetall’s new facility, salt will be almost entirely recovered for reuse. The only solid waste expected is aluminium hydroxide, which can be used in cement production, and non-aluminium scrap fractions.
