German Copper Firm Considers Opening US Plant

According to published reports Norddeutsche Affinerie, the largest copper producer in Europe, is considering building a copper recycling plant in the Louisiana. The company also said its numbers for the quarter should be on the optimistic side.

Reuters says that Norddeutsche is in talks with the Louisiana state government about building a copper recycling plant between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, CEO Werner Marnette said.

The project would be the same as Norddeutsche's copper recycling facility in Luenen, Germany.

The Luenen plant produces about 180,000 metric tons of copper cathodes annually from complex scrap, especially computer and electrical scrap.

"The Americans have closed all their copper recycling and the U.S. exports enormous volumes of computer and electro scrap to China every year," Marnette said. "This project would be a step to assisting the U.S. to secure its raw materials supplies."

In regards to financial numbers Marnette said the second quarter of Norddeutsche's current 2006/07 financial year ending on March 31 had been "very pleasing" and that the company would report "a very, very good half year result."

In the first half ending March 31, Norddeutsche planned to produce 226,000 metric tons of copper rod against 203,000 metric tons in the same year-ago period, he said.

Production of copper cathodes (new metal) would rise to 567,000 metric tons from 493,000 metric tons a year ago.

Some 567,000 metric tons of copper concentrate will be processed in the first half, up from 493,000 metric tons a year ago, Marnette said. .

Marnette told shareholders later the company expected to process 1.1 million metric tons of copper concentrate in the full year 2006/07, up from 1.04 million metric tons in 2005/06.

He said the company was currently working at full capacity.

"Demand for copper remains very high," Marnette said. "Demand is still being driven by Asia, especially China and India."

In a written statement, a spokesman for the company said that in the US a huge amount of recycling materials is arising but practically all secondary copper refineries and recycling activities went out of business some years ago, partly due to environmental problems.

Consequently, large amounts of copper and precious metals bearing scraps are exported, directly or after pre-processing. A large part of these recycling materials goes to Far Eastern countries, such as China. Those countries are offering favorable economic and low-cost conditions for export due to severe market distortions as well as lacks in environmental and climate protection in the processing of these materials.

NA is convinced that a best practice facility would very well fit into the US resources strategy by safeguarding base metals like copper and precious metals for domestic demand. Furthermore a major contribution to environmental and climate protection targets could be made, since recycling safes natural resources and valuable energy.

NA would be interested to invest into a recycling facility in the US based on NA’s advanced technology. The project idea is at an early stage and an appropriate location is still to be determined. One of the preconditions would be a governmental legislation in the US which would safeguard fair trading conditions and prevent unfair competition between environmentally unfriendly and best available technologies.