HarbisonWalker International picks Alabama for $25M plant
2022-01-15
Jan. 15, 2022 - Pittsburgh-based steel manufacturing services provider HarbisonWalker International plans to build a $25 million manufacturing plant and distribution center in Alabama.
HWI is on a quick timeline for the 200,000-square-foot facility, which was announced to customers and employees Friday morning. Construction is beginning in the first quarter on the property, located at 2595 Ensley-Pleasant Grove Road in Fairfield, Alabama, and it will open by the end of the year. HWI already owns the property in Fairfield as it was the site of a plant it closed in 2019 when it left the carbon bake brick products business.
"After considering several location options, we are pleased to become a part of the Fairfield-Birmingham business community in Jefferson County again and bring jobs to the region," said HWI Chairman and CEO Carol Jackson. "The location is ideal for delivering quality refractory products and high-value services to our customers' growing steel operations in the southern U.S."
The plant will be called Alabama One, which will include manufacturing of refractory products, service and distribution for Southern steelmaking customers.
HWI, which is based in Moon Township, confirmed to the Business Times in September 2020 that it was searching for a location for the plant. Refractory products are the heat-resistant material that goes into steelmaking plants to allow them to make steel, and HWI's specialty is in magnesia-carbon bricks. The new plant will be environmentally friendly and advanced, using robotics technology to make the products.
It's also the third big steel industry announcement involving a local company this week. United States Steel Corp. announced Jan. 11 it would build an advanced steelmaking facility in Osceola, Arkansas, near its Big River Steel plant. And Nucor announced Tuesday it had picked southern West Virginia for its own state-of-the-art steelmaking plant in a $2.7 billion project.