USA-based manufacturer of aluminium beverage solutions and one of the world's largest suppliers of aluminium cans, Ball Corp is on the verge of closing its Wallkill Plant in New York. This action would be aligned with the company’s collective bargaining agreement.
Ball has notified its workers and union members about this unprecedented closure and assured them of uninterrupted production hauls from its other factories.
The company justified its recent advancements in a Press Release: “Space, land and equipment limitations make expansion and upgrades to this facility difficult. To increase production and enable the growth of contracted customers, Ball is exploring the closure of the Wallkill plant and supplying the unique sizes from other facilities that can produce them.”
With the closing of the Wallkill Facility, Ball will be practically shutting down the third unit in less than a span of one year. In August 2022, Ball declared the final closure of production facilities in Phoenix, Arizona; also, in a few months, we saw the company closings its St. Paul, Minnesota unit. Ball’s construction of a new plant in North Las Vegas, Nevada, has also been rescheduled.
First established in 1972, the Wallkill facility was a proud producer of various “unique can sizes where Ball is the sole supplier.”
Ball’s president of beverage packaging for North and Central America, Kathleen Pitre, in a statement exclaimed: “Contemplating a plant closure is never easy as it impacts our people. Because of our extensive plant network, we have the ability to modify existing lines to produce these unique sizes.”
“We are exploring the best way to match the growing and changing needs of our contracted customers with our extensive plant footprint,” Pitre added.
If Ball shuts down its Wallkill Facility, the company claims it “can leverage its system of 20 metal beverage container plants across the region to serve its multiple customers with the most sustainable packaging solution in the beverage supply chain.”
On accumulation of the net earnings of 2022, we find Ball collected US$719 million on sales out of US$15.35 billion, which has plummeted sharply from US$878 million on sales to a total of US$13.81 billion in 2021.
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