Environment

With an 86 % increase, SMS group almost doubled its order intake to reach EUR 3.5bn in the 2021 business year, recording the highest level in ten years.

Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) has signed an agreement with Hammerer Aluminium Industries for the supply of solar aluminium.

The Australian governments have provided Alcoa USD7.7m of funding to conduct pilot trials on a new carbon reduction technology for alumina refining.

The aluminium rolled products Ecolite and Superlite from Alvance Aluminium Duffel will go into the all-electric Mercedes-Benz EQS model.

Emirates Global Aluminium plans to build a 150,000-tpy recycling facility, the company’s first and set to be the largest in the UAE.

Emirates Global Aluminium and Gulf Extrusions cooperate in the re-use of an industrial by-product, spent caustic soda.

In 2013 Hydro declared to strive for carbon neutrality in a life-cycle perspective by the end of 2020. Now the company posts that it has achieved the goal ahead of schedule.

Emirates Global Aluminium announces that the company’s recycling of industrial waste increased by more than a third last year to almost 140,000 tonnes. The announcement was made on today’s Global Recycling Day. EGA also reports that regular waste generation decreased by 5% excluding spent pot lining. EGA’s long-term aspiration is to send zero process waste to landfill, and the company focuses on reducing waste generation in its operations as well as developing opportunities for unavoidable waste to be used as feedstock for other industries.

Century Aluminium has launched its Natur-Al low-carbon aluminium products. These products are produced at the ASI-certified Norðurál Grundartangi aluminium plant in Iceland, with energy from 100% renewable sources, allowing Century to achieve CO ₂ levels below one-fourth of the industry average, or 4 tonnes CO ₂ /t of aluminium; this is one of the lowest CO ₂ footprints in the world. All CO ₂ emissions are verified by independent third parties, facilitating life-cycle assessments for our customers.

Hydro’s Alunorte alumina refinery in Brazil has begun operation of a new water treatment station. On 24 January 2020 Hydro received the operating license from the Secretary of State for Environment and Sustainability (Semas). The BRL675 million (USD160m) project, part of a modernization of the refinery’s effluent management system, prepares the plant for future climate change.

Alcoa-Rio Tinto joint venture Elysis has announced that the first commercial batch of aluminium without any direct carbon dioxide emissions will soon be shipped to Apple Inc. The carbon-free aluminium uses a revolutionary smelting technology, developed by the Alcoa-Rio JV. The batch will be shipped this month from the Alcoa R&D facility in Pittsburgh and be used in Apple products.

Russia’s aluminium producer Rusal plans to install over 20 state-of-the-art dry gas cleaning systems at its smelters by 2025. These advanced systems were developed by Rusal itself and the new equipment will allow the company to capture over 99.5 % of hydrogen fluoride and solid fluorides.

On 26 September the Brazilian federal court lifted the final embargo on Alunorte’s new bauxite residue disposal (DRS2). Parent company Hydro is now allowed to resume the activities of installation and commissioning at DRS2 and ending a 19-month embargo period which has restricted production at the plant.

The Federal Court of Pará has lifted the embargo on Alunorte’s new bauxite residue disposal (DRS2) under the civil lawsuit. Alunorte is still subject to an embargo on DRS2 imposed by the same court in a parallel criminal lawsuit, but Alunorte is expecting an extension of the civil decision to the criminal case shortly.