American Specialty Alloys selects Louisiana location

American Specialty Alloys (ASA), Columbus, Mississippi, has announced plans to develop and build a $2.4 billion scrap-consuming aluminum mill complex in Pineville, Louisiana, at a location that formerly was a paper mill owned and operated by International Paper (IP). When operational the aluminum produced at the ASA facility will target the automotive and aerospace industries.

According to Louisiana Economic Development (LED), ASA expects to break ground on the facility later this year. The company hopes to have construction on the complex completed and fully operational by 2020.

In announcing the project’s Louisiana location, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said, “When the IP mill closed several years ago we pledged that we would work on securing a project that would bring good jobs back to that location. We are excited that ASA has announced plans to invest in central Louisiana and take advantage of Louisiana’s strong business climate and world-class workforce. We’ll continue working with the company as it prepares to break ground on this facility and help connect our people with great jobs.”

When fully operational the manufacturing facility will include a melting and casting mill; hot- and cold-rolling mills for sheet and plate; and annealing, slit and cut-to-length production lines. Mill specifications call for production of 1.3 billion pounds of aluminum per year at full operation, with products for use primarily by automakers as car and truck side-panels, doors, hoods and unibody frames. The facility will rely on aluminum scrap for the majority of its raw material intake.

“American Specialty Alloys set out in 2014 to identify a site for its future operations,” says ASA founder, Chairman and CEO Roger Boggs. “We spent considerable time and resources looking at potential candidates across the Southern states, a strategic area for our operations, suppliers and customers. Our needs were specific, based on our project budget, requirements and constraints. We studied many factors essential to the project success, including property characteristics, community engagement, workforce readiness and the quality and support of local service providers. In Louisiana, we found a high level of coordination and cooperation among state agencies and with local site-service providers. We found the site – actually the home – for ASA’s first ultra-clean, advanced, automated, fully integrated flex mill and mega-site campus.”

To secure the project, Louisiana offered ASA an incentive package that includes a performance-based grant of $34 million to offset site-related infrastructure costs, payable in installments upon the company meeting capacity and payroll targets.

ASA chose the Louisiana location after evaluating sites in Texas, Alabama and Mississippi.

The equipment company Danieli Group, headquartered in Italy, has been selected to provide technology services and mill equipment, while Mississippi-based Yates Construction LLC has been tapped to build the mill facilities. Additionally, ASA has secured Advanced Processes Inc., American Specialty Processing LLC and Columbus Recycling Corp. as partners to provide materials sourcing, fabrication and logistics services. The company says additional partners will be named at a later date.