Aluminium manufacturer Constellium is to spend €200 million (£166 million) in upgrading its European automotive business thanks to resource efficiency.
It will invest the cash over the next three years in its portfolio of aluminium flat rolled products that are used for Body-in-White (BiW) components such as hoods, doors, roofs and structural parts of cars.
With the past few years seeing a notable increase in the use of aluminium products in premium car models, the Netherlands-based global company believes that this growth will continue in light of stringent European legislation on CO2 emissions and resource efficiency.
Constellium chief executive Pierre Vareille said: “Constellium is strongly committed to developing its industrial platform and serving the automotive industry globally with innovative and value-added aluminium products. We will therefore continue to focus our energy and resources to develop our global BiW capacity.”
The company, which mainly operates in Europe and US but also has joint ventures in Asia, plans to increase capacity at Neuf-Brisach facility in France and begin BiW production at Singen in Germany in the first phase.
As a result of this, it expects to add up to 40,000 tonnes of capacity with the first BiW coils produced in Singen by mid-2014.
In the second phase, Constellium plans to add a new continuous annealing and conversion line in Europe with a targeted capacity of 100,000 tonnes with commissioning to begin in the second half of 2016.
