Industrial furnace company Andritz Maerz and plant supplier SMS Group have entered into an agreement to transfer the global copper furnace business, including the related intellectual property and service activities, from Andritz Maerz to SMS.

SMS states that the acquisition further strengthens its position as a system supplier in the field of nonferrous metals production.

SMS has been supplying equipment to the copper industry for decades – ranging from smelting and rolling equipment, to presses and forging equipment for the production of bars, tubes, wire, sheet, slabs and other shapes.

During the past few years, under the New Horizon initiative, SMS has expanded and intensified its activities in supplying holistic solutions to the nonferrous metals industry.

"The integration of the copper business of Andritz Maerz into SMS is a significant milestone for [the group] to become a partner for full-line solutions in nonferrous metals production," it states.

Andritz Maerz has 60 years of experience and more than 70 references of smelting and refining furnaces for primary and secondary copper production, including tilting refining furnaces, elliptical furnaces, shaft and hearth-shaft furnaces, drum-type furnaces (including Peirce-Smith converter and anode furnaces), bath smelters as well as top blown rotating converters.

The tilting and drum type furnaces enable high-quality wire, tube and section production, as well as the production of anodes for electrolysis.

SMS’s recently developed innovations, such as BlueControl (dynamic process control simulation), H2-ready systems (solutions for carbon footprint reduction using innovative burners and refining technologies based on hydrogen), as well as various performance-enhancing modules (such as equipment and instrumentation upgrades) will be integrated into the products of the Andritz Maerz copper furnace business.

Further, SMS is going to expand its service activities, building on its existing strong international network of 3 000 specialists and over 50 workshops, which provide modular, machine-specific spare parts solutions for any customer requirements.

The SMS service encompasses everything from on-demand supplies of individual spare parts, the supply of spare parts packages and right up to complete warehousing service. SMS provides warehousing service complete with planning, procurement and logistics.

With the important know-how transfer from Andritz Maerz, SMS is further expanding its position as a supplier of complete solutions for the nonferrous metals industry.

With its product portfolio, SMS offers solutions for primary and the growing number of secondary metals production lines, including for the recycling of electronic scrap, batteries and catalytic converters.