New ReMA Member Spotlight: Cosaco

In February 2022, Japanese based company Mitsui & Co, Ltd. subsidiaries, Spiess-Urania Chemicals GmbH (Germany) and Kocide LLC (TX, USA) were renamed to form a new company called Cosaco. The common name for both entities aligns with the business' aspiration of being the global expert in copper salts, for its different copper salt products used around the world in numerous agricultural and industrial markets.

Cosaco has evolved from more than 260 years combined experience of innovation and technologies in copper salt production. The German side of the business has a history going back to 1815, while the US side of the story began in the early 1960's when the American copper company Kennecott developed its first copper salt product for use in agricultural crop protection.

ReMA News chatted with Cosaco's Hülya Odjal, Supply Chain Manager, and Carsten Kiebert, Director of Operations, about Cosaco, its commitment to use 100% recycled copper of the highest purity, and what they're excited about as new members of ReMA.

Tell me about your role at the company and your background.

Hülya Odjal: I'm the Supply Chain Manager at Cosaco, based in Hamburg and I've been working in metals supplies with Cosaco for about 2 years. Prior to that, I had been running my own LME brokerage business and previously worked for several companies dealing with metal trading within Europe and to Asia. We're now focusing on centralizing the copper purchasing for our plant in Houston, Texas, as well as for the Hamburg operations.

Carsten Kiebert: I'm the Director of Operations at Cosaco and I started my carrier as a chemical process engineer in the copper industry at Aurubis in 1999. During that time, I have worked in all operational areas and scopes related to the production of copper-based products. For the last 10 years I have been responsible for our cross-company operations, coordinated from the Cosaco headquarters in Hamburg, Germany. Copper is in our company DNA; Hülya and I are just two examples of this fact, however this relates to all of our colleagues at Cosaco.

Can you tell me about Cosaco?

Carsten Kiebert: Cosaco can be characterized as company with a long history of copper salts expertise, and we provide our customers with high quality solutions in essential copper salts. That includes product solutions for sustainable agricultural uses including as an organic certified fungicide/bactericide for disease control, fertilizer in plant nutrition and as a feed additive for animal nutrition.

We also sell copper salts of the highest quality for many industrial market segments; as biocide for antifouling, biocide for wood preservation, for catalyst uses, solar panels, electroplating industries, absorption granulates and for the fireworks and glass industries.

Cosaco's German operations (originally part of the Aurubis Group - at that time Norddeutsche Affinerie) started production of copper oxychloride in 1921. This was followed by the development and production of copper hydroxide, basic copper carbonate, and cuprous oxide.

The Houston plant's production began when the American copper company Kennecott developed its first copper salt product for crop protection. The Houston plant opened in 1961 and continues to produce copper hydroxide today, but now also produces basic copper carbonate products.

Our strategy is to offer customer-orientated product solutions of the highest quality to satisfy our global customers. One of our slogans in operations is that you can't make the best copper salts products without using a very high-quality copper raw material.

How did you learn about ReMA? And how did you decide to join the association?

Carsten Kiebert: Cosaco has made a good development in our copper purchasing activities, and our strategy is to become a more global focused copper buyer and consumer. Supported by our shareholder Mitsui, we are strongly committed to expand our business with a focus on the growing global markets for our copper salt products.

Hülya is the Cosaco face to our copper suppliers in Europe and the US markets. Cosaco as a high-volume consumer of recycled copper chops #1, believes that we can count on ReMA as a well-known and highly recognized association throughout the US (and Europe). Our recent ReMA membership is intended to strengthen existing and to develop new relationships with copper chop #1 suppliers and to help promote more visibility of Cosaco as a global player in copper scrap.

Hülya Odjal: Cosaco is a well-known company and copper consumer within Europe for many decades. In line with our growth strategy, we identified the great opportunities available in the US related to copper sourcing. The key part now is to present Cosaco as a reliable customer and partner for US located copper scrap suppliers. When you're a copper salt producer and part of the copper industry, you just know about ReMA. So, when we started to centralize our copper purchasing, there was really no question about now becoming a member of ReMA.

What are some of the company's goals in the context of the ReMA membership?

Carsten Kiebert: Our main goal is to harmonize and centralize our copper purchasing, in line with our global business strategy. We clearly see a lot of potential and benefits in that approach with ReMA. Not to forget and underline the resulting synergy effects for Cosaco and our suppliers.

Cosaco is already a member of the VDM (Association of German Metal Traders and Recyclers) enabling very good knowledge and interactions within the European market. With this background it´s a logical step to add the ReMA-membership to seek further mutual benefits for copper scrap suppliers and Cosaco across the US market.