The business was announced to be for sale a year ago and has been since reported under discontinued operations.
The business to be divested comprises of green anode plants, anode rodshops, and casthouses used in aluminium smelters as well as related equipment and services. Approximately 120 Metso Outotec employees will join REEL upon closing, which is expected to take place during the first quarter of 2021.
The parties have agreed not to disclose the value of the transaction. The sale will have no material impact on Metso Outotec’s financial result.
Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, Metso Outotec employs over 15,000 people in more than 50 countries and its pro forma sales for 2019 were about EUR 4.1 billion.
In a separate press release Metso Outotec announces that it has signed a contract to deliver a complete package of key process equipment for a greenfield zinc plant in Verkhny Ufaley in the Chelyabinsk region in Russia.
The contract value of approximately EUR 100 million has been booked in Metso Outotec’s fourth-quarter 2020 order intake, a quarter of which will be booked in Minerals segment and the rest in Metals segment.
The order includes equipment package for Zinc concentrate processing, iron precipitation, solution purification and electrowinning technologies for safe and sustainable zinc processing based on OKTOP reactor and plant products.
The order also contains a circuit heat recovery system, zinc electrowinning and ingot casting equipment as well as high-efficiency cooling towers for zinc electrowinning and gypsum removal with drastically reduced emissions compared to conventionally designed cooling towers.
It also includes clarifying solutions for consistent solid-liquid separation, high-performance Larox FP and RB filters with low energy consumption, as well as fully integrated digital process automation for more reliable and flexible operation.
The technology to be delivered is the most cost-efficient technology available for zinc raw material processing, enabling efficient zinc and by-product recovery from a wide range of primary zinc raw material. ■