Rio Tinto backs US recycling project as tariffs upend scrap flow
Rio Tinto Group is investing in Exurban, a company planning to build an Indiana plant to recover metals from mobile phones, computers and other electronic waste, just as the Trump administration’s trade policies upend global scrap flows.
Rio, together with recycling specialist Giampaolo Group, agreed to take a minority stake in Exurban of 10% to 15%, according to an investor newsletter seen by Bloomberg.
Exurban was launched in 2022 by a group of well-known figures in the metals industry including Glencore’s former head of copper and cobalt marketing, with a plan to build a $340-million facility in Indiana to recover metals including copper, gold and silver from electronic waste. Other investors include Mitsubishi Materials and MKS Pamp.
At the time, it said construction would start in 2023, but now it looks unlikely to begin before 2026, with the company planning to complete a feasibility study by the middle of this year, according to the newsletter.
The US is one of the world’s largest producers of copper scrap and exported about 600 000 t of copper contained in scrap last year, according to analysts at Citigroup Inc. But the large premium for US copper relative to international prices caused by the threat of tariffs has already begun to discourage scrap exports, they wrote in a note last week.
“If the US could process all the copper scrap it exports domestically, that alone would reduce its net import reliance on refined metal from 45% to 10% all else being equal,” the Citigroup analysts wrote.
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