Transaction signing occurred last week with closing, which is subject to customary regulatory approvals, expected in the coming months.
The deal involves 10 scrap yards located in the south of Germany, across three different companies, ALBA Electronics Recycling, ALBA Metall Süd Rhein-Main and ALBA Metall Süd. Together, these companies process approximately 400,000 tonnes of material annually, the majority of which is steel scrap. The companies source material from a broad range of suppliers, contracts with municipalities and via contracts with industrial clients from a range of manufacturing sectors. The companies ship processed metal scrap and other materials to metal producers and other participants in the circular economy.
Commenting, Geert Van Poelvoorde, ArcelorMittal Europe CEO, said:
“Increasing the use of scrap in our steelmaking operations and securing access to the metallics required for low-carbon steelmaking is one component of our plans to reduce our CO2e emissions intensity by 35 per cent by 2030. I am therefore very pleased to welcome the management teams and employees of all three companies to ArcelorMittal. The management teams will stay in place and we look forward to working closely with our new colleagues to utilise their market knowledge and expertise to enable Alba to capture the strong growth potential which resides in their business, and support our ambition to lead our industry’s efforts to decarbonise.”
This is the second steel scrap acquisition ArcelorMittal has made recently. It follows the acquisition of John Lawrie Metals Ltd., a leading consolidator of ferrous scrap metal based in Scotland, in March 2022.
In its second Climate Action report, published in July last year, ArcelorMittal outlined five levers which will enable the Company to achieve carbon-neutrality by 2050, one of which was increased use of scrap steel. As well as using scrap in an electric arc furnace, we can increase the use of low-quality scrap in the blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace steelmaking process by improving steel scrap sorting and classification, installing scrap pre-melting technology and adjusting the steelmaking process to accommodate scrap.