Video: New Aluminum Company Plans Southeast Location, Lowndes on List

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COLUMBUS, Miss. (Staff and Press Release) — American Specialty Alloys announced today plans to build a $1.2 billion, state-of-the-art, aluminum mini-mill in the Southeastern United States and Lowndes County is said to be among the potential locations.

The planned 1.4-million-square-foot plant is an environmentally friendly mill with over $200 million in pollution control systems. The plant will be the world’s first “green” mini mill. It will supply over 600,000 tons per year of aluminum, flat-rolled product to the automotive industry making it very possibly, the largest supplier of auto grade aluminum in the United States.

“We are proud to be bringing this new facility to market.  We have spent a significant amount of time completing our business strategies, engineering plans, and market analysis and we are now narrowing and finalizing our site selection.  Our phase one operations are targeted to begin in late 2016 with full Phase 1 capacity production occurring 6 months later.  Initially, the plant will create 2,000 temporary construction-related jobs and when fully operational approximately 650-850 new permanent jobs,” stated Dr. Roger Boggs, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of American Specialty Alloys, Inc. 

While a site has not been formally announced, company officials tell WCBI that Lowndes County’s industrial park is among the sites being considered. It’s location with rail, available electricity, port and highway access, and available infrastructure make it a good candidate.

The company has opened a temporary office in Columbus to finalize planning and site selection.

“We hope to make a final decision by the end of the year or early next year,” said George Reil, the company’s chief marketing officer who recently arrived in Columbus from Pittsburgh, Pa. “It’s an exciting project and we are dotting all our Is and crossing all out Ts in going through the selection process,” Riel said.

The new ASA mill will closely follow the proven and highly efficient mill design and operations model developed for the steel industry in the 1970s by the legendary Ken Iverson at Nucor Steel. ASA will be the first to apply his successful steel production model to non-ferrous metal.  Nucor Steel was transformed from a nearly bankrupt company in the 1960s into the largest and most successful steelmaker in the United States.

“We are building a modern mill and using a process that will change aluminum production forever in this industry. The mill will leverage the use of automation, low cost utilities in the South and will use recycled aluminum to efficiently produce the higher grade aluminum that will be used to make the Obama administration’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards (CAFE) compliant automobiles of the future,” stated Dr. Boggs.

Automakers are engaged in a process known as light weighting vehicles utilizing higher and stronger grades of aluminum. “The move to use less steel, substituting lighter aluminum by automakers will create unprecedented demand on current manufacturers of these grades of aluminum. A shortage of modern, efficient, clean manufacturing facilities to keep up with the new demand is what led us to the decision to build our new mill,” Dr. Boggs said.

Automakers are endeavoring to meet the more stringent government CAFE standards.  requiring automakers to raise the average fuel efficiency of new cars and trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

The transition from steel to aluminum in the truck sector has been accelerated by the launch of the 2015 Ford F150. This new truck is using high-strength, military-grade,* aluminum alloy for its body and bed (*6000-series alloy). The F-150 is the best-selling pickup truck of all time. With this design, the F150 shed its curb weight by approximately 700 pounds, and expects increased fuel economy while lowering CO2 emissions. Plans to expand light weighting in other Ford truck models has been announced. Other auto manufacturers have announced their intentions to follow suit.

ASA has chosen the Danieli Group as its technological partner to provide the ultra-modern complete hot and cold rolling and aluminum processing mill. In addition, Innoval Technology will support the advanced aluminum processes and industry requirements. Innoval provides a unique resource of independent expertise to the downstream aluminum industry.

American Specialty Alloys is an American owned company committed to expanding the use of high strength alloys for auto grade aluminum, through the use of new technology to lower the production cost of this material. Their innovative production technology utilizing proprietary design and equipment is expected to lower the cost of producing these materials and shorten delivery time to critical automotive, aerospace, and defense markets.