American Zinc Recycling (AZR) has completed its recycling business sale and launched the American Zinc Products (AZP) joint venture.
Pittsburgh-based AZR provides electric arc furnace steel dust recycling services and first revealed the deal in June noting that Luxembourg-based Befesa will buy all of its recycling assets for $450mn.
Befesa provides steel and aluminum residue recycling, and the new deal will raise its steel mill dust recycling capacity by 40pc to 1.7mn mt over 12 sites in Europe, Asia, and the US.
Befesa will also spend $10mn for a minority stake in AZP which is AZR’s downstream refining operation in North Carolina, to develop the JV with current ownership. The AZP zinc refining JV may eventually be 100pc acquired by Befesa.
AZR produced 81,646mt of finished zinc metal at its Pittsburgh site in 2020. Befesa recycles about 1.5mn mt of annual residuals, with close to 1.3mn mt of output.