Consultants Forum Advertise
Subscribe
Close

  • Free for qualified executives and consultants to industry

  • Receive quarterly issues of Area Development Magazine and special market report and directory issues

Subscribe Now
Renew

Area Development - Site Selection, Facility Planning and Workforce Development

Russia-Based RUSAL-Braidy Industries Plans Ashland, Kentucky Aluminum Mill

04/18/2019
RUSAL, leading Russia-based global aluminium producer, and Braidy Industries Inc., a US-based holding company, plans to establish a joint project in Ashland, Kentucky. The facility will produce flat rolled aluminium products for the United States automotive industry.

According to company officials, the design capacity of the rolling mill will amount to 500 thousand tons of hot rolled band and 300 thousand tons of fully finished cold rolled products on an annual basis.

It will be the widest US-based cold rolling mill with a width of 104 inches, officials said. The output from the mill will aid towards rebalancing the anticipated deficit of the auto body sheet in the US market.

The Braidy Atlas project will have the lowest CO2 emissions facility for end-to-end manufacturing in North America, officials explained. It will be the world’s largest low-carbon rolled aluminium producer, as well as the first new greenfield aluminium mill in 37 years to be constructed in the United States.

This partnership will enable Braidy, which owns both Veloxint, an MIT-incubated lightweighting solutions company, and NanoAl, a Northwestern University incubated materials research and technology company, to become the first company to use 100% low-carbon inputs on a permanent ongoing basis. UC Rusal is the only supplier worldwide who can meet the requirements of producing low-carbon, high-quality aluminium at this scale.

RUSAL will supply aluminium, both in slab alloys and as a primary metal, for the new rolling mill from its new Taishet aluminium smelter that is currently under construction in Siberia. The Braidy Atlas project will be the first North American mill to contract for RUSAL's third-party certified ALLOW-brand of low-carbon aluminium.

Braidy is applying to the US Government Department of Energy and the German National equipment finance programs to fund the debt portion of its capital structure.

Exclusive Research