Owens-Illinois Selects Site and Design-Build Firm for New Glass Bottle Manufacturing Plant in Colorado

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Owens-Illinois Incorporated (NYSE:OI)(Toledo, Ohio) recently announced site selection for its 25th North American glass container manufacturing plant. The 500,000 square foot plant will be constructed east of Windsor, Colorado in Weld County. The plant will be located on Eastman Park Drive close to Eastman Kodak Company's 2,100 employee Windsor X-Ray Film plant (Plant 1523726) and Metal Container Corporation's 120 employee Windsor Metal Can manufacturing plant (Plant 1032304).

Owens-Illinois selected Lathrop Company (Maumee, Ohio), a subsidiary of Turner Construction Company (New York, New York), a division of HOCHTIEF Ag (Xetra:HOTG) (Essen, Germany) as the Design-Build contractor for the project. Lathrop is also working on some glass plant project work for Guardian Industries Corporation (Auburn Hills, Michigan). See archived IIR Industry Alert*: Guardian Industries Plans Two Major U.S. Plant Expansions as it Ramps Up Global Flat Glass Production and Coating Capabilities for details.

Lathrop began work on the detailed engineering phase of the project three weeks ago. Lathrop will provide design-build services for the plant and process support equipment. Owens will purchase major process equipment and Lathrop will be in charge of installation. Site work will begin as soon as construction permits are approved and engineering is complete some time during the fourth quarter of 2003.

The plant will require in excess of 40MW of primary electrical service and multiple electrical substations will be constructed. The plant will house two natural gas fired glass melting furnaces, which are electric boosted and will have several air compressors with significant electrical requirements. Lathrop will complete electrical and mechanical subcontractor bid documents in about 3-4 months.

This is one of several new glass plants that are planned for the U.S. market. See archived IIR Industry Alert*:Does New Rocky Mountain Glass Plant Mark a Turnaround for the U.S. Glass Industry?, for details.

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