MAL Hungarian Aluminium is a Hungarian

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 company specializing in the production of aluminium

Aluminium

Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....

 and related products. It was established in 1995 on the privatization

Privatization

Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...

 of the Hungarian aluminium industry.

MAL's initial assets were the Bakony

Bakony

Bakony is a mountainous region in Transdanubia, Hungary. It forms the largest part of the Transdanubian Mountains. It is located north of Lake Balaton and lies almost entirely in Veszprém county....

 bauxite

Bauxite

Bauxite is an aluminium ore and is the main source of aluminium. This form of rock consists mostly of the minerals gibbsite Al3, boehmite γ-AlO, and diaspore α-AlO, in a mixture with the two iron oxides goethite and hematite, the clay mineral kaolinite, and small amounts of anatase TiO2...

 mine, an alumina factory in Ajka

Ajka

Ajka is a city in Hungary with about 35,000 inhabitants. It is situated in the hills of Bakony.-History:Around 1000 BCE the area was inhabited by Celts. By the 2nd century CE the territory was conquered by the Romans...

 and an aluminium smelter in Inota (municipality of Várpalota

Várpalota

Várpalota is a town in Western Hungary, in the Transdanubian county of Veszprém. It was a mining town during the Socialist era, but the mines have been closed...

), all of them in Veszprém County northwestern Hungary. The company set up subsidiaries in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, and acquired majority holdings in the SILKEM, producing zeolite

Zeolite

Zeolites are microporous, aluminosilicate minerals commonly used as commercial adsorbents. The term zeolite was originally coined in 1756 by Swedish mineralogist Axel Fredrik Cronstedt, who observed that upon rapidly heating the material stilbite, it produced large amounts of steam from water that...

s and ground alumina in Kidričevo

Kidricevo

Kidričevo is a town and a municipality near Ptuj in northeastern Slovenia. The town was formerly called Strnišče, but was renamed after the Second World War in honour of Boris Kidrič, the first president of the Slovenian government, when Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia. Traditionally the area was...

, Slovenia

Slovenia

Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...

, and Rudnici Boksita Jajce, which operates a high-grade bauxite mine near Jajce

Jajce

Jajce is a city and municipality located in the central part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is part of the Central Bosnia Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity...

, central Bosnia. The smelting facilities at Inota were converted into a recycling operation in 2006, and sold off as INOTAL Aluminium Processing Zrt. in 2007.

On 4 October 2010, a retaining dam failed on one of the red mud

Red mud

Red mud is a solid waste product of the Bayer process, the principal industrial means of refining bauxite in order to provide alumina as raw material for the electrolysis of aluminium by the Hall–Héroult process. A typical plant produces one to two times as much red mud as alumina...

 ponds at the company's Ajka alumina factory, spilling 600,000–700,000 cubic metres of highly alkaline and corrosive (caustic) red mud arising as a residual product from the treatment of bauxite

Bauxite

Bauxite is an aluminium ore and is the main source of aluminium. This form of rock consists mostly of the minerals gibbsite Al3, boehmite γ-AlO, and diaspore α-AlO, in a mixture with the two iron oxides goethite and hematite, the clay mineral kaolinite, and small amounts of anatase TiO2...

 with sodium hydroxide. At least ten people died, and about 150 people were injured, in the nearby settlements of Kolontár

Kolontár

Kolontár is a village in Veszprém county, Hungary.- Soil pollution disaster :On 4 October 2010 a 1.5 - 4 meters-high wave of red mud flooded the village from a plant nearby causing nine deaths and several severe chemical burn injuries. Six bodies were found in the mud and other three victims died...

 and Devecser

Devecser

Devecser is a town in Veszprém county, Hungary.In the Middle Ages there were five villages in the area of today's Devecser: Devecser, Kisdevecser, Szék, Meggyes and Patony. These villages expanded in the 12th and 13th century...

.