Background
Macquarie Harbour Mining owns an Aluminium Salt Slag processing business in Victoria, Australia, that is operated by a wholly-owned subsidiary Alreco Pty Ltd (Alreco).
This business treats a waste product from the secondary aluminium industry, Aluminium Salt Slag, and separates it into its individual components of aluminium metal (10-20%), aluminium oxide (30-40%) and a salt and potassium chloride blend (50%).
Alreco holds the exclusive global rights to a proprietary technology that provides a closed-loop treatment of this waste – all recovered materials are valuable and there is no resultant landfill.
Alreco processes material for Alcoa Australia Rolled Products Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alcoa Inc, and Sims Aluminium Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sims Metal Management Limited – the world’s largest recycling company.
Alreco processes all of salt slag produced in Australia, and has a program to progressively process previously landfilled material and recover all valuable commodities.
In January 2010, Alreco acquired this business from Sims Aluminium Pty Ltd. The existing processing technology at the facility does not provide a closed-loop solution, requiring significant volumes of residue to be landfilled.
Alreco is presently upgrading the technology on site, a process that will conclude during the third quarter of 2010. The Company is continuing to operate the existing process during the upgrade, which will be installed with no interruptions to ongoing operations. The residue from the existing process that was previously being landfilled is now stockpiled, and will be reprocessed once the upgrade is complete.
