Hannelore Kraft, Prime Minister of North Rhine - Westphalia, officially opened the facility at a ceremony attended by company representatives, customers and local officials.
The event marked the commissioning of the twin-chamber melting furnace and processing plant designed to recycle 50kt/y of aluminum scrap to feed the Alunorf rolling mills.
The plant, which is a joint venture of Novelis and Hydro Aluminium, is the world's largest aluminium rolling complex with 2170 employees.
It is the second phase of a recycling expansion project at Alunorf that began in 2009 with the construction of a similar recycling facility funded by Hydro.
The combined capacity of the plant’s integrated recycling operations is now 100kt/y.