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A German company plans to open a $340 million (€300 million) plant in Georgia by the first half of 2024 to produce copper from recycled cable, e-waste and other metal-bearing material.
Aurubis Richmond USA’s first U.S. facility will sit on 150 acres in Richmond County’s Augusta Corporate Park, with construction starting next summer. At least 125 jobs are planned when the facility is up and running.
Pat Wilson, the Georgia Department of Economic Development’s commissioner, signed a memorandum of understanding in the company’s hometown of Hamburg with Aurubis CEO Roland Harings. Sergio Domingues from Georgia’s Munich-based European office also played a role in recruiting the company, which joins more than 500 other German firms or affiliates in the state.
“Team Georgia came together to make this possible, and I would like to thank our partners in Augusta and our leadership for supporting one of the largest German investments in our state,” Mr. Wilson said in a statement from Hamburg.
Aurubis’s first U.S. plant is a response to a confluence of trends in the metals industry, both environmental and commercial.
Over the last few years, Aurubis has grown the recycled multimetal division of its business as China has begun to restrict imports of certain copper and other scrap materials, leading to what the company expects will be a 5 percent rise annually in the available raw materials in the United States. Aurubis also acquired Belgian-Spanish recycling firm Metallo last June for 380 million euros.
“With this investment, we’re setting a clear example of sustainable growth and will become a forerunner for multimetal recycling in the U.S. as well – a role that we already have in Europe now,” Mr. Harings said in a release.
The Augusta “secondary smelting” facility will have capacity to process 90,000 tons of waste, churning out 35,000 tons of “blister”copper which can be used to produce copper cathodes, standardized sheets of material that feed rod and wire production lines. Additional metals recovered — gold, zinc, nickel, tin, platinum and more — will be sold in the U.S. or exported via the Port of Savannah for further processing at Aurubis’s European facilities.
“By processing them in Europe, we can ensure the highest possible metal recovery while complying with our high sustainability standards at the same time,” company spokesperson Meino Hauschildt told Global Atlanta via email from Germany.
Aurubis has been processing material from the U.S. for years, but the market in the U.S. was too great to resist, given the glut of supply — some 6 million metric tons of copper multimetal recycling — and an increasing focus on sustainability.
“The North American market is growing strongly and requires local, sustainable processing capacities that don’t exist yet. That’s an excellent market opportunity with a low market risk,” Mr. Hauschildt said.
Access to the port was a key criterion for setting up shop in Georgia.
“The selected site in Augusta has many advantages, such as close proximity to suppliers, availability of utilities, skilled workers, and options for possible expansions, among others. To transport the intermediate products to our European smelter sites by ship, the close proximity to the Port of Savannah played an important role in our decision as well,”Mr. Hauschildt added.
Given that Aurubis’s metals can be used in electric-vehicle batteries, state leaders said the company will augment Georgia’s goal of recruiting firms all along the supply chain for this crucially important sector. The state sees itself as having a leg up on competitors given the $2.6 billion SK Battery plant in Commerce and a strong existing network of automotive suppliers, particularly from Germany. Aurubis joins Igneo and Brightmark in announcing major recycling investments in the state in recent months.
Among Aurubis’s relocation incentives is Georgia Quick Start’s involvement in training the German company’s local workforce. It wasn’t immediately clear what other discretionary tax breaks would be granted. The publicly traded company that posted €12.4 billion revenues and €265 million in net income in 2020. The group expects the Georgia plant to add of €80 million to its earnings when the plant is fully operational, starting in 2025 or 2026.