A British registered scrap metal recycling company, Romco Metals is targeting to raise US$50million for hydrogen production in Nigeria. The recycler wants to enhance its output annually by working on a project to produce green hydrogen for heat generation.
The recycler has plants in Nigeria and Ghana.
Currently, Romco uses compressed natural gas (CNG) to power its furnaces, producing a consolidated 18,000 tons of aluminium ingots annually. However, over the next five years, the company plans to generate green hydrogen to power its furnaces.
With a goal to decarbonize the global metals supply chain, Romco aims to access US$50mn in debt and equity to produce 100,000 metric tons a year of secondary metal through the operation of seven plants by 2025.
According to Romco’s chief executive officer, Raymond Onovwigun global demand for aluminium is on the rise.
“With global supply declining and demand increasing, there is an urgent need to ramp up the recycling of existing metals in the supply chain. Demand for aluminium is expected to grow by 80% by 2050,” he says.
The company which recently started producing copper has added a 12-ton Skelner furnace to their Nigerian operation, and finished installations on the second furnace in Ghana. They are now able to produce 300-400 tons a month of copper ingots moving forward.
A budding plan?
Onovwigun reportedly tells of a collaboration with a United Kingdom-based university, to produce hydrogen using recycled metal. However, it seems that as a medium to long term plan, the company CEO may still be in the process of building the recycled metals to hydrogen idea.
In a chat with Nairametrics, a source said that the process of transforming recycled metal to hydrogen is a bit tricky.
According to her, there is hydrogen from biomass, which is green hydrogen. But, unless the impurities can be pinned, the hydrogen might not be clean and probably lead to more pollution.
“However, with the use of solar, as stated by Romco’s CEO, hydrogen is cleaner. Green hydrogen for heat generation instead of coal or other fuels is less polluting.
“So, you can have the renewables which produce hydrogen and reduce operational expenditure in the long run but also reduce the emissions from heating or any other aspects of the process chain,” Erhahon says.
What you should know
- Romco Group is a growing recycling commodities company producing sustainable metals that are the essential ingredients in almost every aspect of modern life.
- The company’s production output increased 194% from 2020 to 2021. According to a company report, Romco made US$8.1 million in the first quarter of 2022 and 7.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2021.
- Romco has raised £6 million to date. The company’s phase 1 capital expenditure expansion raise was oversubscribed at 150%, and they are on track for phase 2 raise to deliver on strategic growth goals.
- 36,993 metric tons of greenhouse gases have been reduced so far.
- The company has had a 1000% revenue increase year-on-year.
