Aluminium industry supplier in USA closes door due to industry downturn

A century old Freeport Brick Co., which was bought by Fuzion Technologies in 2005, will shut down on April 30, according to the United Steelworkers union in Pittsburgh. The plant produces fire bricks that line industrial equipment such as kilns and furnaces and supplies to steel mills and aluminium producers.

Though Fuzion Technologies declined to comment on the reason of the plant's closure, the steelworkers union attributed it to “financial reasons related to the downturn in the domestic aluminium industry, which results from unfairly traded goods caused by global overcapacity.”

Refractory closures over the last two decades have caused tremendous amount of job losses around the U.S.

“It's sort of unfair. You have no control over what a company decides to do,” a worker said. “But if they are losing money, they have got to get out of it, too.”

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The downturn faced by America's primary and downstream aluminium industry has hit refractory suppliers like the Freeport Brick Co., according to Tom Conway, vice president of the United Steelworkers International of Pittsburgh.

“There has been a tremendous influx of aluminum from China and Russia involving illegal subsidies,” Conway said.

Notably, the union has filed three petitions before the U.S. Department of Commerce and a trade union group regarding the cheap aluminium products import from China by the United States, Conway said.