BUCHAREST (Romania), May 22 (SeeNews) – Greek holding Mytilineos, the owner of Romanian lead and zinc smelter Sometra, said on Tuesday that it will invest $40 million (33.8 million euro) to build a slag processing and recycling plant in Romania.
The new facility will be built on the site of Sometra's non-ferrous metal plant in Copsa mica, in central Romania, the company said in a press release.
The new investment will allow Sometra to recycle the slag accumulated in over 70 years of exploitation, under completely new environmental conditions. The technology allows organic recycling and slag transformation into two categories of salable products: Waelz zinc oxides and Waelz clinker.
"Following a $3 million investment in research and development, we came to the conclusion that it is possible and economically feasible to remove slag waste and turn it into export and domestic products. The plan is to start operations in 2019 for slag processing and internal recycling using our own capabilities," Sometra general manager Christos Efstathiadis said.
Sometra's management estimates that existing slag will be recycled in about 13 years of production, and for the period thereafter, the business plan provides for the factory to be transformed into a supplier of recycling services for other industrial facilities in Romania.
Sometra's existing plant significantly reduced its activity in 2009 due to an economic crisis that affected the entire Romanian industry at the time.
It currently has 25 employees and plans to employ another 50 when the plant becomes fully operational after receiving the environmental permit.
Sometra, set up in 1939, is part of Greek holding company Mytilineos, one of Greece’s leading industrial companies, with activities in metallurgy, electric power and gas trading.
($= 0.8458 euro)