USA – MetalX and Manna Capital Partners announced plans to invest over US$200 million in a new greenfield aluminum rolling slab facility in northeast Indiana, northwest Ohio, or southern Michigan.
The products will reportedly focus on the beverage and packaging industries, as well as auto, industrial and speciality markets.
The companies have a broader aim of developing a US$300 million recycling campus to support the aluminium industry’s sustainability and circularity goals.
The facility will be designed to produce 220 million pounds per year of ultra-low carbon aluminium rolling slab. The material is intended to have a higher percentage of recycled content than is currently available.
The two companies say the facility’s end markets “will be focused primarily on alloys for the beverage, packaging and auto industries, and to a lesser extent, industrial and specialty markets.”
The plant is expected to become fully operational in the first half of 2026 and will employ approximately 100 people.
In addition, the aluminium will be manufactured by MetalX’s processing operation alongside a logistics center from full-service transportation company Page Trucking.
The planned facility joins several major recycled aluminum melt shop investments announced in 2022, including one by can producer Ball Corp., another by steelmaker Steel Dynamics Inc., and a third by Atlanta-based Novelis Inc.
Founded in 2012, MetalX offers nonferrous scrap processing and the application of new technologies for aluminium and copper recycling.
Meanwhile, Manna Capital was founded in 2008 and is based in Chicago. The investment firm developed another aluminium recycling facility in New Mexico in 2022.
In May last year, MetalX announced the acquisition of assets and business of SRT Aluminum in Wabash, Indiana.
SRT is a secondary aluminum melting operation that converts aluminum scrap into specification remelt scrap ingot (RSI) in sow and ingot form.
According to MetalX, the Wabash facility uses electric induction and reverb furnaces to produce 75,000 tonnes of sow and ingot annually.
The SRT plant is located on a 40-acre site that also includes an aluminum shredder and turnings processing operation.
MetalX says SRT employs 120 people, “all of whom are expected to become MetalX employees post-closing.” The transaction was expected to close at the end of July, subject to due diligence and final approvals.
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