Manna Capital Partners
MetalX, located in the city of Ft. Wayne, Indiana, has formed a partnership with Manna Capital Partners from Louisville, KY.
Junior Bridgeman and Kevin Attkisson are the co-founders of Manna Capital Partners, which focuses on private investments. Their ambitious project involves constructing a cutting-edge facility for producing recycled content aluminum rolling slab, which will service the Great Lakes region, specifically.
MetalX
Danny and Neal Riffkin launched MetalX in 2012 as a specialized private enterprise that focuses on metal recycling.
In 2021, the company made headlines after selling off its auto shredding plant and ferrous scrap-oriented assets to BlueScope, a dominant player in the steel production arena. Nonetheless, MetalX continues to move forward with plans for further growth. Most recently, the firm purchased a secondary aluminum production facility stationed in Indiana.
MetalX Joins Manna
A paramount investment initiative has been recently revealed by MetalX and Manna Capital Partners as they plan to fund a “greenfield aluminum rolling slab” facility in the northern Midwest region of the United States, costing over $200 million. The potential sites for this factory include Indiana, Ohio and Michigan.
This new facility will have an impressive production capacity of up to 100,000 metric tons featuring “ultra low carbon aluminum rolling slab.” Furthermore, it provides an increased percentage of recycled content compared to what is currently available on the market.
It is forecasted that by mid-2026, the new facility will have opened its doors, offering approximately 100 job opportunities.
MetalX has announced that it will build the aluminum rolling slab plant close to its scrap processing centers, and the Page Trucking logistics center. This is all part of what it calls a “$300 million greenfield recycling campus where innovative closed-loop recycling solutions will support the aluminum industry’s sustainability and circularity goals.”
Many New Investments
This new venture is just one of many newly-announced investments made in 2022 in aluminum reclamation and melt shop production.
Several companies, such as Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI), Novelis, along with Manna Capital Partners, have declared that they are investing in aluminum rolling mills and melt shops within the United States. However, these notices have raised questions about the potential sources of scrap needed to fuel these operations.
In the beginning of May 2022, Novelis made headlines by announcing a $2.5 billion initiative to build a low-carbon recycling and rolling plant in Bay Minette, Alabama. Construction has already begun, with plans for the plant to be operational come mid-2025.
In July of the same year, SDI unveiled its plans to inject $2.2 billion into building a recycled aluminum flat roll mill alongside two satellite slab centers capable of producing up to 650,000 metric tons annually; operation commence dates are expected within Q1 of 2025.
Ball Collaborates with Manna Capital Partners
In May of 2022, Ball and Manna Capital Partners announced joint plans to establish a recycled-content aluminum can sheet rolling mill and melt shop in Los Lunas, New Mexico. Ball will be an equity shareholder with a minority stake in the mill over the long term, and will enter into a supply relationship with Manna Capital Partners.
This mutually beneficial agreement is aimed at making more domestically-produced aluminum can sheet coils available for key customers of both companies. As Ball states, “alliances like this one will enable access to more domestically produced aluminum can sheet.”
“At Manna, we are always looking for new ways to invest in companies that are doing good for the planet and people, while improving opportunities that support minority owned-business enterprises,” managing partner of Manna Capital Partners Junior Bridgeman states. “We look forward to partnering with Ball, a leader in the beverage packaging industry, to improve supply chain efficiencies through domestic production of more sustainable aluminum.”
President and CEO of Ball Corp, Dan Fisher, explains, “Further increasing recycled content in our products is key to boosting our sustainability and securing domestic supply of our key raw material. This alliance complements the significant manufacturing investments Ball has made across the Southwest United States since 2020 to meet growing demand for sustainable beverage packaging, and we look forward to teaming up with Manna and its management team to help create a truly circular economy for aluminum can sheet, bring skilled jobs to the region, and help our customers meet their sustainability commitments.”
Increasing Global Demand
It is predicted that the international market for aluminum cans will experience an immense rise by 2030, with North America likely taking a major share in this expansion. From 2016 up to today, the usage of beverage can containers within North America has been surging continually. Specifically, from 107 billion units to 133 billion units in 2021, or an increase of 24 percent.
As global demand continues to rise, more partnerships are expected to be formed within the sector.
