Alabama Governor Kay Ivey announced that that Samkee Corp., a South Korean automotive supplier, plans to invest $128 million to open its first U.S. factory in Alabama through a project that will create 170 jobs in Tuskegee. Samkee is poised to begin construction on the new manufacturing facility in the Tuskegee Commerce Park. The company will serve as a Tier 1 supplier to Hyundai Motor Co. Founded in 1978, Samkee specializes in high-pressure die-cast aluminum components, including parts for engines, transmissions and electric vehicles. Parts production at the advanced casting facility in Macon County is expected to begin during 2024.

Alcoa Corp. announced that construction will soon begin on a project to increase the casting capabilities at its Deschambault smelter in Canada to include standard ingots. The new casting equipment will be constructed in an existing building, with the project scheduled to be fully complete in the first quarter of 2023. The output from the approximately $8 million return-seeking capital investment will complement the site’s two existing vertical casting pits, which exclusively cast T-bar ingots.

Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry (WAF), a supplier of aluminum and copper-based alloy castings, acquired the assets of castings manufacturer DEE Inc. of Crookston, Minn. The acquisition will expand WAF’s current operations, increase capacity and reportedly add 30 new jobs at the Crookston location as production grows. DEE is a shell core and permanent molding foundry that also offers heat-treating and inspection services. WAFs main plant in Manitowoc, Wis., houses its foundry and machine-shop divisions and provides a range of castings for the automotive, agriculture, construction, defense and medical industries.

VAluStar crucibles offer more than a 50% increase in the life span of crucibles used in the aluminum casting process. Highly

Spain’s Hormesa is distributing Flextreme technology – an advanced manufacturing process – to the global aluminum industry. Developed and patented by Novelis, Flextreme is a horizontal continuous-casting process that produces bars with a superior surface that generally does not require scalping. Its solidification structure also obviates the need for heat treatment before forming.

Wisconsin Oven Corp. shipped an electrically heated horizontal quench system to an aluminum casting company. The system will be used for solution treating aluminum castings for the aerospace and automotive industries. The solution-treating furnace is designed to heat a 2,500-pound load of aluminum, plus basket and work grid, to an operating temperature of 1020°F. The maximum temperature rating for this system is 1250°F, sized for a 5-foot-wide x 5-foot-long x 5-foot-high basket.