Experience, diversity, and a
worldwide operations network have made Germany's Metallgesellschaft a
metals processing innovator. With MG's recent establishment of Berzelius
Umwelt Service, the focus now is on recycling residues and marketing
recycled material for industrial use.
By
Si Wakesberg
Si
Wakesberg is a New York City-based consultant to the Institute of Scrap
Recycling Industries.
Say the name "Metallgesellschaft" and almost any U.S. metals
industry executive will recognize it. That name represents a vast global
enterprise whose core, while still heavily in the metals business, now
encompasses raw materials, chemicals, and plant engineering. Established
in 1881 in Frankfurt, Germany, Metallgesellschaft--or "MG," as
it is more popularly known--today is one of the world's leading metals
companies, handling copper, lead, zinc, aluminum, stainless steel,
molybdenum, and all major nonferrous scrap metals. It has a workforce of
24,000 and a reported annual sales volume of DM (deutsche marks) 13
billion.
The
company's metals activities cover a wide spectrum: mining, smelting,
trading, and recycling. Last year, MG established Metall Mining
Corporation in Canada as the holding company for its international mining
activities. It operates mines in Germany and has far-flung interests in
other mining operations such as Ok Tedi, Cominco Ltd., and the Australian
firm M.I.M.
The
output of the domestic smelters under MG's aegis is said to be close to
600,000 metric tons (mt) of metal per year. This accounts for over half of
West Germany's total nonferrous metals output, according to a recent
company report. In partnership with M.I.M., MG runs Europe's largest
electrolytic copper smelter, a zinc smelter, a lead smelter, a zinc-lead
smelter, and a zinc processing firm.
Outside
Germany, MG has offices and plants in principal cities such as London, New
Delhi, Rotterdam, Bucharest, Istanbul, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sydney.
In New York, MG's The Ore & Chemical Corporation trades in nonferrous
metals, including precious metals scrap.
With
MG's recent establishment of Berzelius Umwelt Service (B.U.S.) in
Dusseldorf, the focus has been on recycling residues and marketing
recycled material for industrial use. B.U.S. uses the newest technology in
recovering zinc and lead from the dusts emitted from electric arc furnaces
in steel plants. Over a period of years, according to B.U.S., more and
more structural parts and components have been galvanized, leading to an
increased proportion of galvanized scrap and to an increase in the zinc
content of the dust. MG indicates that this similarly applies to iron
foundries, where the dust from cupola furnaces may contain up to 25
percent zinc.
B.U.S.
official Rolf Kola explains: "With our Imperial smelting furnace we
are able to produce, in one unit, metallic zinc and metallic lead. This is
a flexible system to treat all residues of zinc and lead." Kola
pointed out that B.U.S. "has the technology available to recover the
metal values of the materials processed." The resulting slag, he
noted, "can be harmlessly landfilled."
A
B.U.S. report indicates that processing zinc and lead-bearing steel mill
dust by the Berzelius-Walz process, at the Duisberg, Germany, plant,
results in the recovery of 15,000 mt of metal per year. An additional
18,000 mt is recovered from the processing at the ASER S.A. plant in
Bilbao, Spain. The process begins with pelletized dust; then Walz oxide is
transported to Imperial smelting furnaces in Europe to be smelted into
zinc and lead metal. B.U.S. also has processing facilities for stainless
steel dusts.
"MG
buys large tonnages of nonferrous scrap metals," says Kola,
"some of which are directed to its smelters for recycling, others of
which are for trading purposes." As a consumer--and trader--MG buys
scrap copper, brass, cable, aluminum, die cast, and stainless steel, among
other things. Kola indicates that clean aluminum scrap is generally
shipped to the company's secondary aluminum smelter in Essen, while copper
scrap moves to the internationally known Norddeutsche Affinerie in
Hamburg.
As
in the U.S., environmental considerations have prompted MG to seek
ecologically compatible processes by which the tougher standards can be
met. In its 1988 annual report, MG states: "Berzelius Umwelt Service
was established to exploit the know-how of Berzelius Metalhutten in
recycling steel plant flue dust and other industrial wastes. Environmental
considerations also were paramount in the decision to convert lead
production in Stolberg, Germany, to the QSL process, partly developed by
Lurgi and Berzelius, and to build a new smelter in this location. Only
with this ecologically compatible process, for which Lurgi has now won
several orders, can lead production in the Federal Republic of Germany
continue."
Experience, diversity, and a
worldwide operations network have made Germany's Metallgesellschaft a
metals processing innovator. With MG's recent establishment of Berzelius
Umwelt Service, the focus now is on recycling residues and marketing
recycled material for industrial use.