Novelis Inc announced that the commissioning of its EUR 14 million recycling center expansion at Aluminum Norf GmbH in Neuss.

Mr Hannelore Kraft PM of North Rhine Westphalia officially opened the new facility at a ceremony attended by company representatives, customers and local officials. The event marked the commissioning of the twin chamber melting furnace and processing plant designed to recycle 50,000 tonnes of aluminum scrap per year to feed the rolling mills of Alunorf. The plant, which is JV of Novelis and Hydro Aluminum, is the world's largest aluminum rolling complex with 2,170 employees.

The new Novelis recycling center will process aluminum manufacturing scrap from Novelis' customers across Europe as well as from its own facilities. It is the second phase of a recycling expansion project at Alunorf that began in 2009 with the construction of a similar recycling facility funded by the JV partner, Hydro. With today's commissioning of this most recent expansion, the combined capacity of the plant's integrated recycling operations is 100,000 tonnes per year.

Mr Tadeu Nardocci senior VP of Novelis Inc and president of Novelis Europe said that "Today's event marks another important milestone in Novelis' ongoing commitment to recycling and sustainable manufacturing. This new facility brings benefits for the environment, our customers, our employees and the economy of the region It also helps ensure a steady source of metal for our rolling operations here at Norf, while reducing our carbon footprint and that of our customers. Investments such as this one are a key component of our global commitment to increasing recycled metal input to 80% by 2020."

Using recycled aluminum as input material expends only 5% of the energy required to make aluminum from raw materials, thus avoiding 95% of the greenhouse gases associated with primary aluminum production.

Mr Hannelore Kraft said that "The energy intensive businesses in North Rhine Westphalia are important to us as we want to remain an 'Energy state. The last world economic crisis has clearly shown how important a good industrial basis is for us as an area. For me it is also proof of the competitiveness of North Rhine and Westphalia that global companies such as Novelis make money available for investments at Alunorf here in Neuss."