Europe's biggest copper producer, Aurubis, has approved the planned construction of a secondary smelter in the US state of Georgia to tap into the availability of recycling materials and lower electricity costs in the country, the company said on Wednesday November 10.
When fully operational, the plant could process as much as 90,000 tonnes per year of complex scrap, including circuit boards and copper cable, Auribis said. These scrap materials have been banned from entering China since 2019, while Malaysia, another top destination for US copper scrap exports, was close to imposing a similar ban."The need for modern, sustainable, local processing capacities is very strong," Aurubis chief executive officer Roland Harings said during a conference call on Wednesday. "Today, these aren't at all sufficient to cover the high demand, so large...