On 16 September 2026 Emirates Global Aluminium’s chief financial officer, Pal Kildemo, told the Fastmarkets International Aluminium Conference in Budapest that the European Commission’s withdrawal of a planned export duty on aluminium scrap is a “net negative” for a German recycling expansion that still needs a build decision. Reuters reported the remarks the same day. The duty itself will not be levied; the commercial point for yards and remelters is that a mill with capital already committed in Germany and Italy has said the policy change will weigh on whether more sorting and remelt capacity is built.

Kildemo said EGA was “very disappointed” and that the withdrawal “will influence the decision-making process.” He did not cancel the project. “I can't say if the project will go ahead or not without (the duty), but it's a net negative,” he told Reuters. He added that the industry discussion is not finished.

What EGA has on the ground

EGA bought German recycler Leichtmetall in 2024. In December 2025 it announced a six-fold capacity expansion at that unit: 110,000 tonnes a year of additional scrap sorting and 150,000 tonnes a year of melting and casting. Those figures appear in both EGA’s 10 September 2026 release on its Italian acquisition and in Reuters’ account of Kildemo’s remarks. On 20 January 2026 EGA Leichtmetall confirmed the new plant at GreenTec Park Steyerberg in the Nienburg/Weser district of Lower Saxony, with an investment of around €145 million and about 200 direct jobs, and a stated focus on post-consumer scrap from Germany and Europe.

On 10 September 2026 EGA completed the purchase of an 80 percent stake in Eco Green, an Italian collector, sorter, caster and dross processor with two plants near Verona. EGA’s release says Eco Green distributes more than 70,000 tonnes a year and is adding 20,000 tonnes a year of recycled aluminium capacity at Nogara, due in December 2026. That Italian capacity is operating and being enlarged this year. The German expansion is the one still waiting on a build decision.

Why mills and recyclers split on the duty

The Commission withdrew the duty earlier in September. Reuters sources said a prepared text would have set a 15 percent export levy for three years and that the plan was dropped in part because it could complicate the final signature of an EU–India free-trade agreement. European Aluminium, in a 7 September letter from director general Paul Voss and chair Paul Warton, recorded “profound shock, disappointment and anger” and asked for a trade measure to be put back on the agenda. Recycling Europe welcomed the withdrawal. Secretary general Julia Ettinger told Recycling International that extra export restrictions would not fix high energy and labour costs or weak demand in European aluminium manufacturing, and would move the problem from one part of the value chain to another.

The site’s export-restriction briefing already records that the Commission’s public line is to pursue the same retention objective under the Waste Shipment Regulation rather than a customs duty. The draft non-OECD waste-import list published on 18 September is the live document for that path. This piece is about the investment reaction, not a second reading of those files.

Who it affects among yards, traders, mills and processors

German yards that sell old extrusions, painted sheet, Twitch or mixed post-consumer aluminium scrap into a domestic remelt should treat the Steyerberg project as pending, not as booked offtake. If the build is delayed, that metal still has to move: other EU remelters, or an export book that will be judged from May 2027 by OECD status and the authorised-country list, not by a 15 percent duty that was never enacted.

Italian yards already dealing with Eco Green, now to be rebranded EGA Eco Green, are on a different clock. A group-owned buyer is enlarging capacity in the Verona area this year, which changes the local offtake picture without adding a customs charge to the lot.

Traders who have been quoting seaborne aluminium scrap toward India and other non-OECD melts should not rebuild offers around a withdrawn levy. Fastmarkets reported European remelters arguing that a non-OECD waste ban could still be circumvented through OECD ports; that is an industry concern, not a published rule. Keep OECD versus non-OECD and end-of-waste status on the file, because those are the tests that will apply if the waste-shipment route is what Brussels uses.

EU remelters that argued for the duty wanted more scrap to stay in the Union so new furnaces could be filled. Kildemo’s point is that policy certainty is part of a capital decision. A conference remark does not write a retained-scrap premium into a contract. Until a buyer states otherwise, sell the specification the receiving furnace can charge.

How to name the next aluminium lot

Write the grade the melt already uses (new or old extrusions, Taldon / UBC, Twitch, cast), then tonnes, packing, city or load port, and whether the material is still waste or claimed as end-of-waste. Do not price the parcel on a 15 percent duty that was withdrawn. Do not describe it as reserved for a German expansion that has not yet taken a build decision.

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