Norway’s Hydro and its Italian joint-venture partner PENTA plan to purchase a new furnace and expand operations at the Slovalco plant in Slovakia. The investment will enable the plant to increase primary aluminium production and expand remelt operations.
The decision to expand operations at the Slovak plant is justified by the growing aluminium demand in Central Europe. The new remelter facility will serve extrusion plants in Slovakia and other Central European countries by recycling their process scrap to aluminium products. The investment is estimated at EUR 13 million and the final build decision is expected in Q1 2019.
Hilde Merete Aasheim, Head of Primary Aluminium in Hydro, commented:
“Slovalco continuously delivers strong operational performance and is located very close to a fast-growing extrusion market. Lightweight aluminium is a metal in demand, partly due to its recycling properties and we are here to supply this market across the value chain, from the primary aluminium production through remelt and recycling capacity.”
At the moment, Slovalco produces around 174,000 tonnes of primary aluminium every year and the planned facilities upgrade to make the plant also a remelter will enable it to remelt 50,000 tones of clean process scrap in addition to 4,000 tones remelted with existing furnaces.