Austin-area recycling company picked to help address tungsten steel trade imbalance

AUSTIN, Texas - An unassuming building in Del Valle’s Garfield community is a sorting and disbursement center for Amermin, a company that specializes in recycling industrial grade metals.

The business started in a small garage but is now a major player in the global supply chain.

What they're saying:

"One of the biggest things that I think we've realized is we're not crazy. What we're doing actually is working," said CEO Ryan McAdams. "We're having a good time. We're excited."

The focus is on producing what’s called critical minerals. Amermin strips down and grinds up all types of metals — reducing them into a powder that can be forged into new forms.

"There's a lot of waste materials that have gone strictly to the landfill that we've been able to turn around and give manufacturers back some value for those streams," said McAdams.

Amermin works with several large companies, hired to recover copper, nickel, cobalt, and graphite. Some of his clients, according to McAdams, are seeing savings of up to 40% on raw material costs.  

At one company, McAdams said they did a test of the daily floor sweepings which were being tossed into a dumpster. It was determined some of the metal shavings they recovered contained silver. From that one day's collection, McAdams estimated the value of what was once considered trash, was about $50,000. 

It's not a clean job, but it is very important, according to McAdams.

"I think what's important is that we're keeping the tungsten state side," said McAdams.

By the numbers:

The U.S. Department of Energy recently awarded Amermin an $11 million grant to help address a trade imbalance with the supply of tungsten steel. 

The DOE announcement said that the company will "implement a pilot facility to produce tungsten carbide products from feedstock with greater efficiency and lower cost."

At full capacity the facility is expected to be able to process over 60,000 pounds of tungsten carbide waste per month, a ten-fold increase.

Big picture view:

Tungsten metal is essential for things like aircraft and car engines, industrial equipment and cell phones. A lot of tungsten is imported, something the Trump administration wants to change.

"It's like 83% of the world's supply comes from China with recent tariffs and everything. The price of tungsten has absolutely skyrocketed. In our business, we need to make more tungsten quick because if we get cut off from that supply, which we already have, we'd be in trouble," said McAdams.

FOX 7 Austin spoke to energy expert Ed Hirs, an Energy Fellow at the University of Houston, about the Amermin grant. Hirs noted the old saying, one man's trash can be another man's treasure, but also added tungsten is being imported from friendly nations.

"I think it's being smarter with waste. Keep in mind, private equity firms are looking at mining, the dumps that we have around the nation," said Hirs when asked about the benefits of the grant program.

Local perspective:

Metals recycled by Amermin are literally taking off.  

The company is a materials supplier to Firefly Aerospace, which landed on the Moon last year. 

Amermin is building near Firefly's Rocket Ranch complex in Briggs. Part of the federal grant will help expand capacity at the 75-acre site. 

McAdams says his company, which currently has about 40 employees, will be looking to fill jobs in engineering and will need material scientists. 

"Growing up, I've always wanted to do something within the space industry, right? Um, being from Texas, you can't avoid oil and gas, right, so to see the two come together is pretty great," said McAdmas..

What's next:

The site in Briggs is set to be completed later this spring. Amermin also has a processing facility near Lampasas.