MAL Magyar Alumínium Termelő és Kereskedelmi Zrt.
| Magyar Alumínium AG | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1995 |
| Seat | Ajka , Hungary |
| management | Lajos Tolnay, CEO |
| Number of employees | 2060 (2004) |
| sales | 48.4 billion forints (about 192 million euros ) (2004) |
| Branch | Mining , aluminum production |
| Website | www.mal.hu |
The Magyar Alumínium AG (MAL), full name Magyar Alumíniumtermelő és -kereskedelmi Zrt. , German: Ungarische Aluminum Produktions und Handels AG (MAL AG), is a Hungarian stock corporation with headquarters in Ajka in Veszprém county north of Lake Balaton . The company was wholly owned by two Hungarian investors and was nationalized by the Hungarian Parliament on October 12, 2010.
history
The Hungarian aluminum ore production began in 1917 with the Aluminumerz Bergbau und Industrie AG , which took over the former foreign plants and companies based in Fiume ( Rijeka ), Trieste , Bucharest and Zagreb after the First World War . The company Bauxit Trust AG Holding was founded in Zurich to manage the activities of the Hungarian and foreign companies . Towards the end of the 1920s, this group, which was in the hands of German companies, was one of the largest bauxite companies in the world.
The Ajka clay factory was founded in 1943 to mine and process the indigenous bauxite deposits. The bauxite is processed using the Bayer process . In addition, the ALU-FÉM division also produces aluminum cast alloys and the like. a. Made from molten aluminum scrap and waste.
In 1946 all files of the former German companies in Hungary were brought to the Soviet Union. The Hungarian-Soviet Bauxite-Aluminum AG emerged from the existing Hungarian bauxite industry . Bauxite mining and its processing industry played a special role in Hungarian industry after 1945. Therefore the Bakony bauxite mining company, the clay factory and aluminum smelter in Ajka, the clay factory in Almásfűzitő and the state-owned Hungarian aluminum industry were combined.
The company Magyar Alumínium AG was founded in 1995 as part of the privatization of the Hungarian aluminum industry . Hungarian private investors led by Zoltán Bakonyi , the former took over state-owned enterprises Bakony bauxite mining , Ajka alumina factory and Inotaer aluminum smelter, they added one to the newly founded company and converted it into a corporation. The entire society is to ISO 9001 and other quality management standards such as ISO 14001 certified .
To further strengthen the sales structures, the company was restructured in 1997/98, divided into several divisions and a. the MAL-Product SRL in Romania and Handels GmbH (MAL-Germany GmbH) in Germany , together with the company Metallwerke lump GmbH in Renningen founded (now MWK Renningen GmbH - a company of Georgsmarienhütte Holding GmbH ). In 2001 the majority stake in the Slovenian company SILKEM doo , which produces various synthetic zeolites and ground alumina products, was purchased. Furthermore, in June 2004 the majority ownership of the Bosnian bauxite mine Rudnici Boksita Jajce was acquired. On January 31, 2006, the Inotaer aluminum smelter was shut down and at the same time two blast furnaces were put into operation there for scrap melting . On June 1, 2007, these production capacities for semi-finished aluminum products in Inota were sold to INOTAL Aluminum Processing GmbH .
70–75% of the total production goes as exports to the Western European countries. As one of the few companies in the world, MAL AG in Ajka also produces very pure gallium and operates the only aluminum electrolysis plant in Hungary.
Kolontár dam breach
The company attracted national and international attention on October 4, 2010, when the storage dam of the landfill basin for the storage of red mud at the Ajkai Timföldgyár alumina factory broke and an estimated 600,000 to 1.1 million cubic meters of the corrosive and heavy metal-containing sludge leaked. The mud got into the flood stream Torna and flooded the communities along the stream Kolontár , Devecser , Somlóvásárhely , Tüskevár , Apácatorna and Kisberzseny .
This basin is one of currently eight particularly endangered holding basins in which, according to WWF Hungary, around 55 million cubic meters of red mud are stored. Among other things, around 12 million tons of toxic sludge are stored in another red mud dump near Almásfüzit , between Győr and Budapest.
Years ago, as part of the privatization of Hungarian environmental protection organizations, reference was made to the weak agreements on corporate responsibilities in the event of an accident.
Greenpeace demanded that the two factory owners assume full liability for the consequences of the accident. The company promised to cover all costs of the accident in full. The compensation of 110,000 euros that has been promised so far is offset by an estimated fortune of the two owners Zoltán and Árpád Bakonyi of an estimated 145 million euros, making them one of the thirty richest Hungarians.
Web links
- Company homepage (Hungarian)
- The company's homepage (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Annual Report 2004 PDF document
- ↑ Press release of October 9, 2010
- ↑ Taz article from October 12, 2010
- ↑ Wirtschaftsarchive 1945/48-Bauxitbergbauunternehmen ( Memento of the original from April 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Hungarian State Archives
- ↑ Kolontár evacuated after toxic mudslide. Deutsche Welle, October 9, 2010, accessed October 9, 2010 .
- ↑ State of emergency imposed: four dead from toxic sludge in Hungary. In: The Standard. October 6, 2010, accessed October 9, 2010 .
- ^ "Even more dangerous poison cocktails" in Kurier on October 9, 2010, page 12
- ↑ poison accident in Hungarian aluminum factory. Greenpeace website, accessed September 16, 2017
- ↑ http://bauletter.wordpress.com/ Bauletter
