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Area Development - Site Selection, Facility Planning and Workforce Development

Constellium-UACJ Corporation Joint Venture Will Establish Aluminum Production Facility In Bowling Green, Kentucky

05/09/2014
As part of a joint venture, Constellium N.V. and UACJ Corporation will to build a $150 million, 225,000 square foot, aluminum production facility at Kentucky Transpark in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The project, which will produce finished aluminum body sheets for cars and trucks, is expected to create 80 new jobs in the region.

Constellium, a European aluminum company, and UACJ, a Japanese aluminum company, both will supply the aluminum coils that will then be treated and processed in Bowling Green. The joint venture, which is subject to regulatory approval, will supply these parts to the country’s major automotive manufacturers. The facility is also designed to allow for future expansion.

“Bowling Green is the right place for this plant, particularly because its central location will allow us to serve automotive OEMs across the U.S. with our advanced and innovative range of products,” said Laurent Musy, President of Constellium’s Packaging and Automotive Rolled Products business unit. “The availability of a highly skilled local labor force and the entrepreneurial spirit of the area were the decisive factors in choosing the city of Bowling Green and the state of Kentucky, which have been very supportive during the decision process.”

“This project is very significant for UACJ in terms of our Body-in-White market strategy,” said Mitsuru Okada, CEO of UACJ. “We look forward to supplying automotive OEMs throughout the U.S. with advanced products utilizing the technologies each party has separately developed in Europe and Japan. We welcome this joint venture with Constellium to tackle the strategic automotive market in the U.S. Both companies have been working hard together in the spirit of equal partnership, allowing us to finalize the agreement in a timely and efficient manner.”

Tri-Arrows Aluminium will be one of the key suppliers of cold rolled aluminium coils to the new partnership. Tri-Arrows Aluminum, which is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, is a subsidiary of UACJ. The company manufactures its base aluminum coils at its joint-venture operating mill at Logan Aluminum Inc., located in Russellville. Logan is one of south central Kentucky’s largest employers with more than 1,000 full-time employees.

”This is a great opportunity for UACJ and Tri-Arrows to participate in this dynamic growth segment for aluminum along with our partners at Constellium,” said Patrick Franc, President/CEO of Tri-Arrows Aluminum Inc. “We are also very pleased with the choice of Bowling Green, which is in close proximity to the Logan rolling mill.”

“This is a huge investment in Kentucky – one that further solidifies our role as a key player in the auto industry,” said Governor Steve Beshear. “It’s also exciting to see companies from two different continents jointly choose Kentucky as the place to manufacture an innovative product.”

To encourage the investment and job growth in Warren County, the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority preliminarily approved the company for tax incentives up to $4.5 million through the Kentucky Business Investment program. The performance-based incentive allows a company to keep a portion of its investment over the term of the agreement through corporate income tax credits and wage assessments by meeting job and investment targets.

KEDFA also approved the company for tax benefits up to $1.5 million through the Kentucky Enterprise Initiative Act, which allows approved companies to recoup Kentucky sales and use tax on construction costs, building fixtures, equipment used in research and development and electronic processing equipment.

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