Indiana-based secondary smelter Metal Source purchased Huntington Aluminum to expand its scrap recycling operations.
Huntington Aluminum's 100,000ft² facility in Huntington, Indiana, contains two rotary furnaces and two reverb furnaces for recycling aluminum scrap. It becomes Metal Source's fourth processing plant.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Metal Source plans to upgrade equipment, buildings and infrastructure at Huntington and aims to boost the location's scrap recycling capacity by early 2023 to 100mn lb/yr, or 2,500 truckloads.
Much of Metal Source's business is focused on remelting of A356 wheel scrap into ingot for use in the die and sandcasting industries, similar to Huntington's customer base.
Argus' weekly US prices for 356 wheels were trading in the most recent assessment at $1.50-1.52/lb, just below all-time highs, supported by LME aluminum settlements that also were similarly elevated.
US scrap margins on 356.1 alloy are off their all-time Argus peaks reached in December but remain far above historical norms this month, with spot alloy selling for more than 50¢/lb over the price of wheel scrap.
US secondary smelters have noted a bidding a war for wheel scrap over the past several months as more Midwest remelting capacity comes online
