The groundbreaking ceremony marked the official start of the three-year construction phase for the new voestalpine special steel plant in Kapfenberg, Austria. From 2021 onwards, each year the fully digitalized plant will produce around 205,000 tons of sophisticated high-performance steels, especially for the international aviation and automotive industries as well as for the oil & gas sector, while at the same time securing more than 3,000 highly skilled jobs in the region over the long term. Preparations for the major project with an investment volume of up to EUR 350M are already fully underway: the construction site is currently being prepared, with work focusing on energy supply and logistics infrastructure.
The new high-tech special steel plant which, once operative, is intended to replace the existing voestalpine Böhler Edelstahl GmbH & Co KG plant in Kapfenberg and designed to produce premium quality pre-materials for aircraft components, tools for the automotive industry, equipment for oil & gas extraction, and for the 3D printing of highly complex metal parts.
Wolfgang Eder, Chairman of the Management Board of voestalpine AG said “Todayâs groundbreaking ceremony for the new plant is not only a milestone for our Group, and Kapfenberg as a location, but also a positive signal for European industry, as this is the first investment in a completely new steel plant in decades. This investment provides voestalpine with a global technological lead and cost advantage in manufacturing high-performance steels, and allows us to remain globally competitive over the long term, even when producing at a traditional European location.â?
