ATI chooses firm to supply rolling mill in Brackenridge
Allegheny Technologies Inc. said yesterday that it has selected a company to design, engineer and supply the $1.16 billion hot rolling mill it plans to install at its Brackenridge plant, a rolling mill that one analyst said will be the "mother of all rolling mills."
Siemens VAI Metals Technology's next-generation integrated hot rolling mill will be a critical part of ATI's new advanced specialty metals hot-rolling and processing plant, Allegheny Technologies CEO L. Patrick Hassey said in a statement.
The new facility will expand the plant's product line, giving ATI the capability to add flat-rolled titanium and higher-strength nickel alloys, as well as a number of the alloys that ATI has focused on for growth potential and are being made at other plants, spokesman Dan Greenfield said.
Allegheny Technologies, a Downtown-based specialty metals company, did not reveal how it much it will pay Siemens for the work, or why it selected Siemens, which is based in Vienna over competitors. Greenfield said the selection was made after an extensive multi-year study.
Groundbreaking is slated for later this year and the project is expected to be completed in about four years.
The Downtown-based company is self-financing the project. Allegheny Technologies said its profit for 2009 fell to $31.7 million, from $565.9 million the year before. Sales totaled $3.1 billion last year, compared to $5.3 billion in 2008. It has about 2,700 employees in Western Pennsylvania. In addition to the Brackenridge plant, ATI's Allegheny Ludlum unit operates plants at Bagdad, Houston, Latrobe, Midland, Vandergrift and Washington, along with its headquarters in Downtown and its research center in Harrison.
Hassey said at the company's shareholders meeting in May that it has all the necessary government permits and site preparations are almost complete.
The fully automated mill will give ATI the capability of rolling and processing hot metal bands as wide as 78 inches, compared to its existing mill that can process metal no wider than 48 inches.
The hot rolling mill and processing plant will reduce the company's cost to produce flat-rolled products and expand its position in key markets, Hassey said. Those markets include chemical process, oil, natural gas and electrical energy industries, along with the aerospace and defense.
"I think it will be the mother of all rolling mills," said industry analyst John Tumazos of Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC. of Holmdel, N.J.
It is being designed to roll several classes of metals -- stainless steel, high-nickel alloy used in jet engines, titanium, non-nickel stainless for car exhaust systems and silicon electrical steel for transformers, plus new alloys that will be developed, Tumazos said. The hot rolling mill will replace one built in the 1950s, although it has been updated, he said.
"It's unique in its width and thickness. If they had not built this, in the long run, they would not be in the stainless business," because of competition, Tumazos said.
ATI's Brackenridge project is one of the two largest announced in the region in recent years. The other is U.S. Steel Corp. $1.1 billion project to build new coke-producing batteries and upgrade existing ones at its Clairton plant.
The project was delayed in April 2009 because of the downturn in the steel industry. U.S. Steel CEO John Surma said in April the steelmaker remains committed to implementing technology to meet air quality requirements.
U.S. Steel spokeswoman Erin DiPietro said there is no update on the company's plans for its coke works project in Clairton.
