Alabama Governor Bob Riley announced that SSAB, a global steel producer, decided to locate a new heat treating facility in Axis, creating 180 jobs. The new facility, where production will commence in 2011, represents a $460 million capital investment. It serves to expand an existing SSAB plant in Alabama’s Mobile County. At this plant, SSAB already employs 400 full-time workers, as well as 350 contract workers.
SSAB could have gone anywhere in the world to locate this new plant, said Governor Riley. That they picked Mobile only goes to show that Alabama can not only produce anything in the world in a high-quality fashion, but that we also have one of the best workforces in the country.
The heat treatment facility will produce quenched and tempered steel plate, which is used throughout the manufacturing and construction sectors in applications where properties such as strength, hardness and toughness are required beyond those available in commercial grades. The expansion will quadruple the Axis plant’s capacity to make quenched and tempered steel plate, producing 440,000 tons a year of the high-end product.
Neal Wade, executive director of the Alabama Development Office, said, This is a very significant project for Alabama and underscores the importance of the steel industry in our state. We won this because of the great partnership between the state, local governments and the state port authority.