HARRISBURG, Pa., Oct. 15, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Worldwide industrial services company Harsco Corporation (NYSE:HSC) announced today new agreements between Harsco Minerals and two of Austria's leading stainless and specialty steel producers to recycle their metalmaking slags into environmentally beneficial commercial applications. The 10-year agreements have a combined revenue potential of up to $100 million over their duration, and both automatically renew for successive 5-year periods.
"These substantial new relationships demonstrate Harsco's broad international scalability in the integrated metals and minerals sector," said Harsco Chairman and CEO Salvatore D. Fazzolari. Working in collaboration with Germany-based Scholz Recycling AG, one of the world's premier recycling companies for ferrous and non-ferrous metals throughout Europe, Harsco will process the existing stockpiles and future slag outputs of two of the leading mills in Austria, Bohler Edelstahl and Breitenfeld Edelstahl. Harsco will assume full responsibility for recovering the slag's high-value metallic content for re-sale to commercial markets while also generating aggregate materials for use in a broad range of external applications, from road construction to civil works. Bohler Edelstahl is one of the world's leading manufacturers of high speed steels, tool steels and specialty materials while Breitenfeld produces corrosion-resistant and other specialty steels for the offshore engineering, aerospace and automotive industries.
The project is expected to be a major contributor to Austrian environmental sustainability. The processing of slag and slag stockpiles is taking on increasing importance for major metal producers, both to recapture the slag's valuable metallic content and to address the increasingly stringent regulatory demands being placed on producers for the environmentally-responsible disposition of their slag stockpiles. Harsco Minerals will build on its proprietary experience in the U.S., France, Brazil and elsewhere to construct and operate a new state-of-the-art slag processing and metal recovery facility in Austria to handle the materials. The new facility is expected to be operational toward the end of 2010.
Harsco Minerals is a world leader in the re-use of ferrous and non-ferrous industrial co-products for maximum environmental benefit. The Group's expanding global footprint is expected to underpin future growth in this key business platform for the Company.
Harsco Corporation is one of the world's leading diversified industrial services companies, serving key industries that play a fundamental role in worldwide economic growth and development, including infrastructure, metals, railways and energy. Harsco's common stock is a component of the S&P MidCap 400 Index and the Russell 1000 Index. Additional information can be found at www.harsco.com.
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