Alcoa Inc. has completed the expansion of the aluminum lithium capacity at its Kitts Green facility in the United Kingdom, the company announced Tuesday.
The company projects this expansion will quadruple aluminum lithium revenues to reach nearly $200 million by 2019.
The Kitts Green expansion is the second phase of a three-part plan to satisfy the demand for Alcoa's advanced aerospace products and patented alloys, which allow airframes to increase fuel efficiency at what Alcoa says is a lower cost than composite alternatives.
The first phase of the plan was the company's expansion of its Westmoreland County Alcoa Technology Center in January 2012. Alcoa expanded the capacity of the facility, located near Upper Burrell, by 30 percent.
Alcoa said the Kitts Green expansion will allow them to better serve the growing demand for its third generation aluminum lithium alloys.
“We introduced our third-generation aluminum lithium alloys at the last Paris Air Show and demonstrated their potential to increase fuel efficiency, reduce inspection intervals, improve passenger comfort and lower capital costs for aerospace manufacturers,” Mark Vrablec, president of transportation and industrial rolled products for Alcoa Aerospace, said in a prepared statement. “The response was phenomenal. In fact, the response indicated demand that exceeded our production capacity at the time, so we launched initiatives to expand our aluminum lithium operations at three locations around the world."
The third phase of the expansion is a new $90 million facility under construction adjacent to the company's plant in Lafayette, Indiana that will provide an additional 20,000 metric tons of aluminum lithium.
The company expects the Lafayette expansion to be completed and online by the end of 2014.
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