INDUSTRY NEWS ME Elecmetal to Build Steel Casting Facility in China
ME Elecmetal, Minneapolis, announced a $45-million project to construct a specialty steel casting facility in China. Te company, part of the Chile- based Claro Group, expects the new plant to have 30,000 metric tons of mill liner production capacity. Te metalcasting facility will be located in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, China. According to a statement by ME Elecmetal, project engineering is in the final stage of development and construction is slated to begin in the third quarter of 2012. Te company anticipates the facility to start up in the fourth quarter of 2013. Te plant’s output will support hard rock mining and milling, primarily for large-scale operations in the Asia Pacific region, which are experiencing increasing demand. “Te Changzhou facility will al-
low us to more quickly respond to our existing and potential customer base in the Asia Pacific region,” said President Andy Fulton. “Te liner facility, coupled with our joint venture ball plant [established in 2011], offers a strong manufacturing platform to achieve our goal of being the pre- ferred provider of total grinding solu-
In addition to focusing on wear parts for mining applications, ME Elecmetal produced a tread belt shoe for this space shuttle crawler transport.
tions to this expanding market.” ME Elecmetal produces impact
and abrasion resistant castings used in crushing and milling applications. With its parent company, Elecmetal SA, the company operates metalcasting facilities in Duluth, Minn., and Tempe, Ariz., with a licensee in Mexico. Elec- metal SA operates similar foundries in Santiago and Rancagua, Chile. In 2011, ME Elecmetal announced
a $23.4 million investment in its Duluth and Tempe, Ariz., metalcast- ing facilities. In January 2012, it spent $12.2 million more on the Duluth plant, citing rising demand from the mining industry. Te company currently serves cus-
tomers in 30 countries and has 1,000 employees, primarily in Chile and the U.S., as well as in China, Brazil and Canada.
Nanshan America to Launch Direct Chill Casting Operation Nanshan America Co. Ltd.,
Chicago, has begun construction on a new manufacturing facility in Lafay- ette, Ind., that will include direct chill casting capability. Te company, a division of the China-based Shandong Nanshan Aluminum Co. Ltd., expects to spend more than $100 million on the nearly 700,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing campus. Construction is currently underway on an extrusion facility that will constitute the primary division of the new location. “Te site we purchased in Lafayette makes a lot of sense for our business,” said Lijun Du, president of Nanshan America. “It is close to our main mar-
ket. We have easy access to Interstate 65, a truck diesel station nearby, low business costs, technical support from Purdue [Univ.], a strong workforce base and training capabilities at Ivy Tech Community College.” Once the extrusion plant is up and
running in the next several months, the company will begin construction on its direct chill casting facility. Te casting plant initially will be capable of producing 50,000 tons of alumi- num per year. Eventually, Nanshan America expects to add enough melt- ing capability to increase production to 100,000 tons of castings annually. Te Lafayette plant will be the
Nanshan Group’s first U.S. manufactur-
ing site and will be known as Nanshan America Advanced Aluminum Tech- nologies. Te plant employed 30 at last count but is expected to provide about 150 jobs when it reaches full production. “Te Nanshan facility in Lafayette
will make extrusions used in the mass transportation, automotive, distribu- tion, industrial and electrical indus- tries…[as well as] train-body material for the high-speed rail industry,” Du said. “It will be a competitive combi- nation—Chinese capital, state-of-the- art equipment from Europe and the U.S. with the most recently patented technology, experienced and innova- tive American management and a talented local workforce.”
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