Metals

Constellium signs multiyear contract with Airbus

Constellium N.V., based in Amsterdam, has announced that it has signed a contract with Airbus, headquartered in France, to support all of the aircraft manufacturer’s leading aircraft programs. The agreement is currently under Airbus Group Corporate approval.

Constellium says the agreement builds on the partnership agreement signed with Airbus in 2010 that marked the introduction of the Airware technology on the A350 XWB and confirms its position as a leading partner for aerospace aluminum products and solutions.

Under the new agreement, Constellium will supply Airbus with a broad range of advanced aluminum rolled products for airframes, including wing skin panels and aerosheets for fuselage panels, as well as rectangular and premachined plates for structural components.

Constellium and Airbus say they will deepen their cooperation in logistic and recycling solutions to reduce inventories along the supply chain and to support the ramp-up of Airbus’ key programs, including A320neo.

ARCA Recycling signs utility contracts in eight states

ARCA Recycling Inc., a Minneapolis-based wholly owned subsidiary of Appliance Recycling Centers of America Inc., has announced it has signed contracts to manage turnkey appliance recycling programs for seven utilities in California, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Washington and West Virginia.

These contracts vary in length and take effect during the second and third quarters of 2016. Some contracts resulted from ARCA Recycling’s work assisting utilities affected by the unexpected closure of Jaco Environmental Inc., a Mill Creek, Washington-based appliance recycler in November 2015. In many cases, ARCA Recycling says it was awarded long-term contracts after helping bridge the short-term service gap.

“Utility interest in our recycling programs remains heavy,” says Edward R. (Jack) Cameron, ARCA Recycling’s president. “We appreciate the time, effort and financial resources our utility partners are investing in energy-efficiency programs with important environmental benefits.”

Duesmann & Hensel Recycling announces name change

Beginning Sept. 1, 2016, Duesmann & Hensel Recycling, headquartered in Aschaffenburg, Germany, will be known as Hensel Recycling. The precious metals recycling company says it will issue all of its communications under the motto “New Name – Same Service” and will roll out its new company name to the industry.

In 2014 the company’s owners, Clemens and Thomas Hensel, acquired the shares of Alexandra and Ralf Duesmann, therefore, they say it makes sense to change the company name accordingly to Hensel Recycling. As a family-owned company, a conscious decision was made to use the family name.

In March 2016, Hensel Recycling entered a transitional phase in which the company’s new name began to be used in all company communications; however, the company’s name will change officially Sept. 1.

Hensel Recycling also has changed its logo. In keeping with the motto, “New Name – Same Service,” the company says its new corporate design conveys certainty, stability and connection with employees and clients.

“It is our intention to assure our customers that only our name is changing and that our services, our employees and everything else that characterizes our company will remain exactly the same,” says Managing Partner Clemens Hensel. “Today, Hensel Recycling stands for top services in the precious metal recycling sector and will continue to do so in the coming years.”

For more than 18 years, the company has been a leading provider of precious metals recycling services for a range of materials, including catalytic converters, oxygen sensors and circuit boards.

Demanding times

Despite vigorous competition from overseas markets and other basic materials, demand for North American-made steel may be set for an increase in 2016 and 2017, according to several speakers at the 2016 Platts Steel Markets North America Conference, which was mid-March in Chicago. Good news for domestic steel demand should invariably lead to better news for ferrous scrap prices.

In the automotive sector, vehicle sales are at an all-time peak. “Current conditions for U.S. auto demand are as good as it gets,” said Richard Hilgert, an equity analyst with Chicago-based Morningstar, citing low interest rates and low unemployment.

The “long, slow recovery” in the U.S. economy means those sales figures “should be bouncing along near the peak for a few years,” Hilgert added. Morningstar, however, has its forecast for vehicle sales “tailing off in 2018 and beyond.”

Both Hilgert and P.K. Rastogi of AK Steel, Middletown, Ohio, offered positive comments about steel’s ability to compete in the automotive sector. Rastogi said advanced high-strength steel alloys are helping steelmakers compete against aluminum and plastic in an era of automotive lightweighting.

Rastogi added that for safety, affordability and sustainability reasons, steel remains a competitive material in the auto sector.

Sustainability also is on the minds of architects and builders, where steel competes with a number of materials for market share, according to John Cross, vice president of the Chicago-based American Institute of Steel Construction.

Cross said nonresidential construction was down by 2 percent in 2015 and construction in all the sectors that are considered steel-intensive “grew less than 0.5 percent; it was essentially flat.”

More from this session at the 2016 Platts Steel Markets North America Conference, March 14-15 in Chicago, is at www.RecyclingToday.com/article/platts-steel-demand-2016-scrap-recycling.

Alcoa introduces Arconic

New York-based Alcoa will name its future value-add company Arconic, with its tagline being “Innovation, Engineered.” Alcoa says its separation into two, independent, publicly traded companies in the second half of 2016 remains on track.

“The ‘Arconic’ brand fuses our extraordinary heritage with our highly promising future,” says Alcoa Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Klaus Kleinfeld.

The company also unveiled a fresh iteration of the Alcoa logo for the upstream company, which retains the Alcoa name.

Arconic and Alcoa will be domiciled in the U.S. and listed on the New York Stock Exchange: Arconic as ARNC and Alcoa as AA. The upstream company will comprise the five business units that today make up Global Primary Products: Bauxite, Alumina, Aluminum, Cast Products and Energy. Arconic will include the three business segments that today comprise Alcoa’s value-add portfolio: Global Rolled Products, Engineered Products and Solutions and Transportation and Construction Solutions.