BEFESA

Befesa Zinc Sur to hold consultation days for the steel dust recycling and recovery plant in Villafranca de los Barros

Villafranca de los Barros (Badajoz), 10 May 2010. Befesa Zinc Sur S.L.U., a subsidiary of Befesa, has developed a project to install and open a steel dust recycling and recovery plant in the municipality of Villafranca de los Barros. The integrated environmental licence (AAI) and the environmental impact study required to operate the plant are currently at the public consultation stage. During the month of May, Befesa will therefore meet anyone that may have doubts or questions about the plant, at its facilities.

The project consists of a plant that will recover steel dust and other zinc-containing waste (graphite dust, zinc ash, metallic oxides, foundry residues, etc.) to obtain crude zinc using the Waelz process. The plant will have a capacity to treat some 160,000 tonnes of steel dust per year, from which it will obtain 55,000 tonnes of Waelz oxide and 90,000 tonnes of Ferrosite.

The plant will be located on a new site of 120,101 square metres in the industrial estate of Villafranca de los Barros, Sector 8, in the province of Badajoz. It will have a 55 metre rotating furnace, warehouses, dust silos, storage areas, auxiliary installations, an office building, laboratories, and a research area for developing recycling projects.

Befesa Zinc Sur S.L.U. is part of Befesa, the international company that provides solutions for industrial waste management and for managing and generating water, with a strong emphasis on its social responsibility, contributing towards creating a sustainable world through industrial waste recycling activities and developing the integral water cycle.

Befesa’s industrial waste recycling activities include the provision of integral collection services, steel waste recycling and treatment, aluminium waste and salt slags recycling as well as providing management services for other types of industrial waste. In the water sector, the company designs, constructs, operates and maintains all types of water infrastructures and facilities, as well as managing and operating them under concession agreements, especially desalination plants, water treatment and purification plants, and water distribution and transport infrastructures.

For people interested in the steel waste recovery project at the new plant, Befesa staff will be available on 12, 19 and 26 May, from 11:00 to 14:00 and from 17:00 to 20:30 at the company’s offices in calle de Nuestra Señora de la Cabeza, 3, 06220 Villafranca de los Barros, Badajoz.

Befesa, the environmental services subsidiary of Abengoa, focuses on providing environmental services to industry and the construction of environmental infrastructures. It is a listed company with a market capitalisation in excess of €401 million (close 2009) (www.befesa.com).