MetalX completes purchase of secondary aluminum melter

MetalX, headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has completed the transaction to acquire the assets and business of secondary aluminum melter SRT Aluminum in Wabash, Indiana, which converts aluminum scrap into specification remelt scrap ingot (RSI) in sow and ingot form. With the closing of the purchase, the newly acquired company is operating as MetalX Aluminum Conversion LLC, or MAC.

MetalX announce the purchase in May of this year.

The company also has announced that aluminum and manufacturing industry veteran David Currence has been named plant manager at MAC and will be responsible for leading the company’s efforts to refine operating performance and increase capacity. Joe Rosengarten, former SRT chief operating officer, will join the MetalX commercial team as a vice president. More than 120 other people that the facility employees have become MAC employees.

MAC is on a 40-acre site that also includes an aluminum shredder and turnings processing facility, melt operations that use three electric induction and two reverb furnaces to produce RSI in sow and ingot form. In the near term, MetalX says it intends to increase monthly throughput from 11 million to 15 million pounds, with longer-term term plans to invest additional capital into capacity expansion.

“We are excited to welcome our new Wabash employees to the MetalX team and look forward to their support and participation in building a successful and growing business,” Danny Rifkin, MetalX CEO, says. “Completion of this transaction marks the first step in our plan to incorporate aluminum melting capabilities into our overall strategy.”

In late 2021, Australia-based steelmaker BlueScope announced that it had entered into a binding agreement to buy the ferrous scrap recycling business of MetalX, describing the company as “the leading supplier of scrap feed” to its Delta, Ohio, electric arc furnace (EAF) steel minimill, North Star BlueScope Steel.

Following that announcement, Rifkin said MetalX would grow its nonferrous business. BlueScope purchased the Delta and Waterloo facilities, and MetalX’s nonferrous business from Waterloo transitioned to Auburn, Indiana.

He added, "We have been working on developing a more extensive nonferrous strategy for some time. We see tremendous opportunity for the future in the nonferrous segment, especially related to copper and aluminum. So, as the world moves towards more electrification and lighter weight, and as the use of copper and aluminum becomes more prevalent in everything, we see that as an outstanding opportunity for long-term growth for the company.”

MetalX was founded in 2012 by Danny and Neal Rifkin, third- and fourth-generation members of the Rifkin family, which has a long history in the scrap industry. The Rifkin family founded OmniSource, which the family sold to Steel Dynamics Inc., Fort Wayne, in 2007.