RTI Selects Site for $100 Million Titanium Facility

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)-- RTI International Metals Incorporated (NYSE:RTI) (Niles, Ohio) announced in May 2007 that it was planning to invest $100 million to expand its melting, rolling and forging operations to support signed contracts worth more than $3 billion with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics and Airbus. After months of planning and several site studies, including its Ohio facilities in Niles and Canton, RTI chose to build the $100 million titanium rolling facility at the Patriot Centre Industrial Park in Martinsville, Virginia. R. E. Warner & Associates Incorporated (Westlake, Ohio) is providing engineering services for the grassroot project, which is scheduled to kick off in March 2008 and become fully operational by mid-2010.

Of the $100 million investment, $20 million will go toward an existing 79,480-square-foot shell building at the Patriot Centre with a planned 79,500-square-foot expansion. The plant, which will eventually employ 150 people, will house rolling, forging and finishing operations. The remaining $80 million will be spent on machinery to produce titanium bloom, billet, sheet and plate. After the Martinsville plant is fully operational, RTI's annual mill production capacity of 17 million pounds will increase to 31 million pounds.

To help with the titanium supply contracts, RTI is also investing in a $300 million previously announced grassroot titanium sponge manufacturing plant with a 20 million-pound annual capacity in Hamilton, Mississippi. With engineering and construction management services provided by Parsons Corporation (Pasadena, California), construction is scheduled to kick off in March 2008 and be completed by early 2010. For more details, see related November 12, 2007, article - RTI Expands to Support Titanium Supply Contracts Exceeding $3 Billion.

RTI spent $8 million on equipment upgrades at its Nile mill last year. With a $15 million capital budget for 2008, it has initiated capital upgrading programs, which will fall into 2009 to accommodate the increase in titanium mill products demand.

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