“Hydro CIRCAL has gotten a lot of traction in the market and this is an important step to meet the growing demand for low-carbon products. Getting Azuqueca’s production up and running is truly a combination of sustainability and profitability,” says Eivind Kallevik, Executive Vice President of Primary Metal in Hydro.   

By adding the capacity, Hydro will be able to supply more customers in the building and construction industry with this low-carbon extrusion ingot. 

Hydro has invested €10 million in a new de-lacquering unit and melting furnace in order to process more post-consumer scrap and produce Hydro CIRCAL – aluminium made with a minimum of 75% recycled, post-consumer scrap. The project has been somewhat delayed due to Covid-19, but delivered on budget and without any health, safety, environment incidents.

“We are very pleased that we are able to ramp up our capacity, especially during these challenging times we all have experienced. This is a great recognition of the work being done by the team at Azuqueca and the support from our colleagues in the Primary Metal organization,” says Ramón Gonzalez, plant manager at Azuqueca.     

The annual production of Hydro CIRCAL from Azuqueca is expected to be around 20,000 tonnes.  

Hydro CIRCAL is a range of products made with recycled, post-consumer scrap. Using recycled content, energy consumption is drastically reduced while still producing high-quality products.  

The independent risk management and quality assurance company DNV-GL issued the certificate for production on July 7, 2020.