Matalco billet plant prepares for Q4 start

Matalco, headquartered in Brampton, Ontario, has announced its plan to start production at its Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, facility later this year, despite COVID-19 delays.

Last January, the company announced the building of the $80 million facility to produce homogenized 6000 series aluminum logs and cut billets primarily from scrap for the aluminum extrusion and forging manufacturing industries. Matalco says it plans to produce more than than 230 million pounds (115,000 tons) of aluminum billet each year.

Originally, the plant was supposed to break ground in April or May of 2019, but permitting delays at the Department of Natural Resources pushed that back to October. COVID-19 delays this spring pushed back the opening once again.

Robert Roscetti, the vice president of corporate development at Matalco, says planning for this facility goes back to early 2018. Matalco will be the first secondary aluminum remelt facility in the region.

While the plant will start up production later this year, it will bring in about 60 to 80 full-time permanent positions once it reaches full production capacity within a few years, the company says.

When it comes to delays from the pandemic, Roscetti says they haven’t pushed things back too much as most delays were related to safety concerns for those working.

“We have a revised scheduled ‘first cast’ date of mid-November 2020. Due to COVID-19, we slowed down the construction activity in March but picked back up in late May, which delayed our plant startup and commissioning by a couple of months,” Roscetti says.

Looking at the bigger picture, Roscetti says this plant “will allow Matalco to broaden its geographic footprint in the upper Midwest and now better serve our existing customers in the region while providing an excellent opportunity to expand our customer base with new prospective clients.”

Roscetti says he believes that while the pandemic has affected many areas of the business, Matalco’s customer demand will slowly recover and return to normal.

Despite the delays in construction and other impacts from COVID-19, Roscetti is optimistic about the startup of this facility and what it means for the company in the future, as it now positions Matalco as the largest secondary aluminum remelt company in North America.

Founded in 2005, Matalco operates four remelt and casting facilities in Lordstown and Canton, Ohio; in Bluffton, Indiana; and in Brampton.