Macquarie Harbour Signs Deal to Process Aluminum Salt Slag from Alcoa

According to a number of published reports, Macquarie Harbour Mining Limited has entered into a conditional agreement to acquire the Aluminium Salt Slag business, associated plant and equipment and underlying land and buildings from Sims Aluminium Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sims Metal Management Ltd.

Following the deal with Sims, Macquarie Harbour Mining finalized an agreement to process aluminum salt slag with Alcoa Inc.

The three-year contract covers 33,000 to 39,000 metric tons of material to be processed, and for a payment of A$300 per ton.

Reports also noted that Macquarie negotiated to acquire from a third party the exclusive global rights to a proprietary technology critical to the process.

Aluminium Salt Slag is a waste stream that results from the recycling of aluminum, a by-product from recyclers that has traditionally been placed in landfill. Due to regulatory changes by the EPA, this material can no longer be disposed in landfill and this has presented a major problem for the industry. Without a viable solution the secondary aluminium industry cannot continue to operate using the existing highly-efficient yet waste-generating processes.

Prior to the incorporation of MHM, two of the company’s directors Frank Rogers and Peter Robertson developed a proprietary technology that provides a “closed-loop” solution to the Salt Slag waste issue. This technology removes the need for any of the waste to be consigned to landfill. The waste is processed and converted into its primary components being aluminum metal, salt and non-metallic product (aluminum oxide), which is a by-product that can be sold into a variety of other uses. MHM has now acquired exclusive global rights to this technology from the Technology Providers.

Sims owns a Salt Slag processing facility in Moolap, Victoria which has been used to process material from its own smelting operations, together with that of Alcoa. The Sims process, however, still requires a significant portion of the material to be consigned to landfill at considerable expense.