At its grand opening on April 14th, attended by His Worship Dean Dickey, the Mayor of the City of Columbia and other dignitaries, Mark Samuel, Chairman of Samuel, announced the expansion of the state-of-the-art facility.
Bill Chisholm, Samuel’s President and CEO states that the improvements will bring the total investment in the plant to more than $62 million USD and when completed, will see the facility house two blanking lines and a slitting line in a 200,000 square foot facility.
"This major investment clearly signals that Samuel will be a first mover into the advanced high-strength metals and aluminum business in the U.S.,” Chisholm said.
Specific details of the announcement include:
- A 100,000 square-foot expansion of the facility adding two additional bay
- A second blanking line
- A state-of-the-art 84-inch slitter
The improvements announced today are expected to be operational in approximately seven months to a year and will complete the start-up of the green field facility in Columbia officially opened earlier this month.
The expansion will provide Samuel customers with a one-stop processing solution which will see product railed to the facility, slit, lubricated, and blanked all at one location representing significant cost savings, improved quality control and greatly improved freight and logistics. In addition, the Columbia plant is close to several OEM’s, a number of steel and aluminum mills and numerous significant end-use customers.
Tom McGrogan, President Canadian Service Centers and Head of the Samuel Automotive Vertical, says today’s announcement is the next step for Samuel in continuing to develop its Automotive business.
“This expansion supports our automotive customers in increasing their use of aluminum and advanced high strength steels in today’s vehicles to reduce weight and improve fuel efficiency and clearly signals that Samuel is poised to become a major player in this changing market,” McGrogan said.
