The additional coating line at Novelis’s Pindamonhangaba, Brazil facility will handle stock for beverage can ends. The $106m investment reportedly will add 100,000 metric tons of annual coating capacity, 190,000 metric tons of recycling capacity, and approximately 100 jobs once the facility is fully operational.
Regional demand
Tadeu Nardocci, senior vice president of Novelis and president of the company’s South America business, said the expanded capacity comes at a time when demand for aluminum cans and other beverage packaging products is climbing.
“These critical expansion projects increase our capacity to meet the growing demand for beverage cans in Brazil and enable Novelis to process even higher levels of recycled material as we continue to increase the recycled content in our products," he said. "Brazil is one of the most rapidly-growing regions where Novelis operates around the world, highlighted by recent growth driven by the World Cup.”
The recent World Cup (hosted in Brazil) reportedly pushed consumption of aluminum cans in the region during the four weeks of the competition to 2bn units. Nardocci said Olympics fever and gains in the population’s disposable income could cause a similar surge.
Growing production
The Novelis facility’s updated 100,000-ton-line reportedly will enable the manufacturer to directly address the needs of can customers in the region, instead of relying on the services of a third-party packaging partner. According to the company, products will be coming off the added line in the next few months.
The expansion of the recycling center comes in support of the company’s goal to increase recycled content by 80% over the company’s product offerings by 2020. The recycling center reportedly already is the largest in South America.