Public info session on cast house

ISIZINDA Aluminium will hold a public meeting in Richards Bay on Tuesday to outline plans for three Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) relating to the expansion of its casting operations.

The meeting, which will clarify the plan of study and terms of reference for the studies, will take place in the Isizinda Aluminium boardroom at 4 Harbour Arterial road at 2pm.

Isizinda was established by its two shareholders Bingelela Capital (Pty) Ltd and Hulamin (Pty) Ltd in 2014.

The consortium, which acquired the Bayside cast house from

South32 in 2015, plans to expand its operations to include an ingot casting facility to be located in the slab cast house, billet casting plant to be operated by Bingelela Extrusion (Pty) Ltd and ingot casting to be operated by Bingelela Alloys (Pty) Ltd projects.

An environmental scoping report has been compiled to identify areas that will be impacted by the activities.

The company is proposing, among other projects, to refurbish a portion of the casting shed and plant to produce aluminium ingots which will be supplied to other industries in South Africa for the manufacture of car wheel rims.

‘The refurbishment will involve upgrading two existing mixing furnaces in the existing slab cast house at Isizinda (which are currently non-operational), removal of an existing casting machine and replacing it with a new ingot casting machine,’ the scoping report states.

Bingelela Capital is also proposing to develop an unused portion of the existing, but mothballed, Isizinda billet cast house to produce billets which are sold for use in the manufacturing of secondary aluminium products.

The public has been given until 12 August to submit inputs on the proposed projects.

For more information and to submit comments, email Megan McNamara on megan@ imatrader. co.za