The launch is the latest in the company’s groove feed innovation.

Davis-Standard, based in Pawcatuck, Connecticut, has introduced the latest in its groove feed innovation with the launch of its SHO (super high output) extruder.

According to a news release from Davis-Standard, the SHO is equipped to save space while offering outputs up to 20 percent higher than existing groove feed models and is engineered with an optimized feed section and high-performance, energy-efficient DSB barrier screw. The company says this is especially beneficial for high-viscosity, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) applications like pipe extrusion, where lower melt temperatures, reduced power consumption and improved energy efficiency are paramount.

“Improving energy efficiency equates to tangible savings for your operation while reducing your carbon footprint,” says John Christiano, vice president of technology for Davis-Standard. “The SHO builds upon our existing groove feed technology with a more streamlined, compact footprint and even greater performance in terms of output and energy savings.”

The SHO features Davis-Standard’s next-generation gearcase, which the company says optimizes valuable production space along with a streamlined hopper, low-profile power panel, rugged base and all components fully enclosed.

Davis-Standard says the advantages of the SHO include improvements in output, output consistency, melt quality, reduced purging/changeover time and energy efficiency.

Size ranges for the SHO range from 2 to 6 inches (50 to 150 millimeters) with a length to diameter ratio of 42:1.

Germany-based copper producer cites healthy metals market for profitable fiscal year.

Hamburg, Germany-based Aurubis AG says it earned record-high earnings before taxes (EBT) in its 2020/2021 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, 2021. The firm, which predominantly produces copper but also other nonferrous metals, says it “was the most financially successful” year in the company’s history.

The 353 million euros ($398 million) of EBT it earned exceeded the 221 million euros ($249 million) of EBT from the prior fiscal year by about 60 percent, Aurubis says.

“We’re proud of the achievements in a fiscal year that was still under coronavirus conditions for the most part – it went fairly smoothly despite this and other challenges, such as supply chain bottlenecks and rising energy prices,” says Aurubis CEO Roland Harings. “Additional positive factors included high plant availability across the group, the swift and successful integration of the new recycling [former Metallo] sites in Belgium and Spain into the group and the consistent ongoing implementation of our cost reduction program.”

Aurubis says it maintained “a good ongoing supply on both the primary raw material side (concentrates) as well as for recycling materials.” Healthy increases in refining charges for copper scrap and other recycling materials positively impacted its results, says Aurubis, as did “strongly increased metal prices” and demand for finished copper, nickel and tin.

The company says it has restarted its production plant in Stolberg, Germany, which was destroyed following severe flooding this summer. “This wouldn’t have been possible without our employees on-site and the prompt, uncomplicated support from the Aurubis Group,” states the firm.

The company indicates “the recycling business is a key element of the strategy where Aurubis will continue to grow.” Harings says, “We want to responsibly transform raw materials into metals for an innovative and sustainable world. During the past fiscal year, Aurubis processed more than 1 million tons of recycling material for the first time – this impressively shows what Aurubis is capable of achieving today in this area alone.”

Aurubis points to the construction of a recycling plant in the United States, an investment of about 300 million euros as a further commitment to metals recycling.

In Beerse, Belgium, site of a former Metallo smelter, Aurubis will invest roughly 30 million euros ($33.9 million) in a metallurgical facility designed to process anode sludge rich in tin and precious metals.

The company says it is striving to make its production carbon-neutral well before 2050. “We see ourselves as a provider of solutions for ecologically sustainable business activity in order to accelerate decarbonization,” the firm states.

Looking ahead, Aurubis predicts that “supported by industry forecasts and current demand on the markets, Aurubis expects a good supply of copper concentrates, an at least stable supply of recycling materials, and positive global copper demand. The Aurubis copper premium was raised to $123 per ton for 2022 owing to demand and higher costs.” In 2021, Aurubis says that premium averaged $96 per ton.

A predicted slowdown in global recovered paper demand and trading did not take place after China’s import ban.

The evolution of the containerboard sector in the People’ Republic of China since that nation banned scrap paper imports at the start of this year was a prominent theme at the 10th Asian Recycled Fiber and Containerboard Conference. The early December RISI Fastmarkets event is being held in Wuhan, China, and online for those unable to attend in person.

However, another prominent theme brought out in presentations and panel discussions was the vibrancy of the global scrap paper trade (and the strength of prices) in the immediate aftermath of China—for many years the world’s largest buyer—leaving the global market.

Figures presented by Brett Biggers, senior economist with the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), indicate scrap paper exports from the United States increased by 14 percent in the first nine months of 2021 compared with the same timeframe the prior year.

Helping absorb the recovered fiber surplus in the U.S. have been buyers in several nations, although India stands out as the largest volume buyer. The nation has recorded a 134 percent increase in tonnage purchased from the U.S.

Mexico and Canada also are among the 10 largest volume U.S. recovered paper buyers in 2021, but then seven more Asian countries join India on the list. Buyers in both Thailand and Vietnam purchased more than 1.3 million metric tons of material in the first three quarters of 2021.

Those two countries, along with others in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, are among places where recycled-content pulp is being made from imported old corrugated containers (OCC) and other grades. That pulp often is then shipped to containerboard mills in China, said panelists and presenters.

Shawn Wang of Fastmarkets RISI, who moderated a panel discussion, acknowledged that in 2017, when China’s looming ban was announced, many observers thought scrap paper in North America and Europe might soon be headed to the landfill. Instead, she commented, “U.S. exports have increased [and] that is so different from our expectations.”

Fastmarkets RISI Senior Economist Hannah Zhao said mixed paper values indeed headed to zero in early 2018, but any landfilling of even that grade “has ceased.” Her colleague Echo Xu commented that with the ban in place in China in 2021, it served to “fundamentally change the flow of scrap paper” globally and changed “the direction of investment” in China and elsewhere.

India is importing more fiber not only to feed its own paper and board mills, said Xu, but also to produce rolled recycled-content pulp that is being exported to China. Some of this product is likely “imported under a finished paper code,” Xu said, so it is not always tracked in recycled-content pulp flow figures or maps.

Large tonnage recycled-content pulp facilities in Thailand and Malaysia also have helped supply Chinese containerboard mills. Since July 2020, the recycled pulp price “has increased dramatically,” she said. Xu added that it is not being purchased for its low cost but instead plays a role as “a fiber supplement” for mills in China.

While scrap paper collectors and traders can be pleased that they have weathered the initial turbulence caused by China’s ban, they likely will continue to deal with tighter specifications and potentially costly inspection procedures in other nations.

In the panel discussion at the conference, Candy Chen of trading firm Vecycle Ltd. said the inspection procedures put in place in Indonesia make it “highly complicated” to complete export arrangements to that destination at a time when making shipping bookings that stay in place already is a difficult endeavor.

Nominations are being accepted by the trade group until Jan. 7, 2022.

The Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) is accepting nominations for its Young Executive of the Year Award up through Jan. 7, 2022.

The award, established by ISRI’s Young Executives Council, “is designed to elevate the recycling industry as an exciting career option open to all and recognize well-rounded young professionals who have a strong track-record of leadership in business and community,” according to the trade association.

ISRI says nominees must be employed by an ISRI member company, and the council is not seeking self-submission candidates. The award is open to member company employees born on or after Jan. 1, 1982, who have minimum of one full year of employment in the industry.

The award recipient, according to ISRI, will be acknowledged at the 2022 ISRI Convention & Exposition in Las Vegas and will receive a complimentary full registration to that event “in addition to complimentary registrations to any/all ISRI national events of their choosing throughout the year.”

Ardersier Port Authority proposal includes a mill to melt steel from decommissioned North Sea oil rigs.

A port authority that manages a brownfield site in Scotland has reportedly created an economic development plan that includes the siting of a scrap-fed electric arc furnace (EAF) steel mill.

Several media reports from the United Kingdom indicate the Ardersier Port Authority in Scotland has included an EAF mill among the facilities and services that would be part of a proposed “circular Energy Transition Facility.”

A report from Insider.co.uk says the goal of the plan involves “recycling the oil rigs of the past to make foundations for future fleets of floating offshore windfarms.”

An industrial complex at the port of Ardersier formerly fabricated offshore oil rigs, according to a report by the BBC. “The yard shut in 2001 and since then it has become a brownfield site, formerly developed and now disused land,” adds the news agency.

Descriptions and a map of the proposed redevelopment of the 400-acre parcel include references to an oil rig decommissioning facility, the EAF steel mill, a waste-to-energy facility. The BBC says planners also envision “a concrete wind turbine foundation ‘hub’ [that] would use dredged sand and recycled steel in its manufacturing processes.”

While online reports indicate a French company has expressed interest as a potential investor in the wind turbine hub fabrication plant, no existing steelmakers have yet been named as having been approached or having shown interest in EAF production at the site.