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Calvert area considered for German steel plant A tract of land near Calvert is being considered for the location of a German steel plant that would encompass approximately 3,000 acres and create nearly 30,000 jobs for the area just during the construction phase. ThyssenKrupp Steel AG and ThyssenKrupp Stainless AG plan to jointly build a new plant in the U.S. at a cost of $2.3 billion. The search for a location for the plant has been narrowed to one in Louisiana and a couple in Mobile County. The other Mobile County site is near Creola. According to an article in the Feb. 8 issue of the Mobile Register, the Creola site, known as Creola Investments, is at U.S. 43 and Interstate 65. It has 3,000 acres on flat terrain, is six to 10 miles from a dock facility on the Mobile River and would be served by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. The site near Calvert, known as the Tensaw Tract, is located off U.S. 43, has rolling topography and an on-site dock. Its waterway is the Tombigbee River and its rail service would be Norfolk Southern. ThyssenKrupp reportedly employs more than 180,000 people in 70 countries. The newly proposed facility would employ nearly 3,000 people once it is up and running, with the potential for 38,000 to 52,000 indirect jobs over a 20- year period. During his visit to Chatom, Saturday, U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby said he was very hopeful about bringing ThyssenKrupp to the area. "Gov. (Bob) Riley is leaving today to go to Germany in hopes of bringing this company to the state," he said. "This would mean a lot of high paying, good jobs and would change the entire economic base for this region." Washington County Probate Judge Charles Singleton agreed. "These are great jobs," he said. "This German company is used to paying top wages. Spinoffs would be created and we are trying to position ourselves to host some of those spinoffs. It doesn't matter where the company is from as long as they treat their workers well." Monday, McIntosh Mayor Carroll Daughtery said, "The acquisition of a facility that size would change the whole outlook of this part of the state. We certainly need it." Jackson Mayor Richard Long expressed his excitement about the possibility of the location of the ThyssenKrupp plant to the area. "The announcement that the choices have been narrowed to Alabama and Louisiana is outstanding news for the state, Jackson, Clarke County and Southwest Alabama," he said. "The 29,000 construction jobs are an enormous number as well as the 3,000 permanent jobs. Unlike the Montgomery- Hyundai project, this time Jackson is on a major 4-lane U.S. highway from Mobile and we will experience tremendous opportunities from the project. We have the infrastructure to attract and service these opportunities but this will increase greatly the demand for housing, hotels, restaurants, and other service industries. Jackson and Clarke County are now experiencing many new opportunities but this will be a significant life changing opportunity for all of the citizens of Clarke County." ThyssenKrupp produces hot and cold roll steel as well as products that include medical equipment, kitchen appliances and elevators. According to a press release from the company last week, the central element of the new plant will be a hot strip mill which will be used primarily to process slabs from the new ThyssenKrupp CSA steel mill in Brazil. There will be cold rolling and hot-dip coating capacities for high-quality end products of flat carbon steel.
In addition, ThyssenKrupp Stainless plans to build a plant to manufacture stainless steel flat products. A melt shop will turn out up to 1 million metric tons of slabs per year which will be rolled on the hot strip mill. A cold rolling facility is also to be erected which, in the first phase, will be designed to produce 325,000 tons of cold strip and 100,000 tons of pickled hot strip. Around 340,000 tons of the stainless hot strip produced on the hot strip mill will be used to supply the ThyssenKrupp Mexinox cold rolling facility in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
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