Founded in 2002, Service Center Metals began operating in Virginia in 2003. It produces aluminum billets, rods, bars, extruded shapes and tubing, all of which are shipped to service centers across the United States. The company is vertically integrated with two plants on its 30-acre campus.
Its flagship extrusion plant has two presses, and its Compact Remelt plant—consisting of a horizontal billet casting operation—recycles scrap and produces aluminum billets for extrusion presses. The two new facilities will mirror the existing ones.
“The Commonwealth of Virginia and Prince George County have both played significant roles in catapulting Service Center Metals from a greenfield startup into the North American benchmark for safety and productivity today,” Service Center Metals President and CEO Scott Kelley said in a statement. “Our next expansion will be the largest in our history, adding significant capacity to both our billet casting and extrusion operations that will further satisfy our customers’ needs.”
The state of Virginia successfully competed with Tennessee for the project, which will create 94 new jobs.
“Service Center Metals has experienced tremendous success in Prince George County over the past two decades, and an investment of this magnitude is extremely significant for the region,” Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said in a statement.
Northam approved a $350,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund to assist Prince George County with the project. The Governor also approved a performance-based grant of $900,000 from the Virginia Investment Performance Grant, an incentive that encourages continued capital investment by existing Virginia companies.
SCM invested $45.2 million in 2018 to expand its manufacturing capabilities. The current expansion is its fifth major capital project in under 20 years.
The Aluminum Association’s Index of Net New Orders of Aluminum Mill Products showed that through the first eight months of 2021, orders recorded by domestic producers grew 21.6 percent compared with the same 2020 period.
Separately, Nucor plans to build a new melt shop at one of its existing bar mills in the Western United States. The $100 million melt shop will have the capacity to produce 600,000 tons annually. Nucor has 15 bar mills across the United States that roll 9.5 million tons per year of carbon and alloy steel concrete reinforcing bars, hot-rolled bars, rounds, light shapes, structural angles, channels, wire rod and highway products.