Ball Corporation to cease production at three beverage packaging plant in 2018

Ball Corporation, a leading beverage can maker with production facilities around the globe, announced that they will stop production at its Birmingham, Alabama, Chatsworth, California, and Longview, Texas, beverage packaging plants in 2018. The company will supply its products from other facilities.

Also, the company will build a new state-of-the-art beverage packaging facility in Goodyear, Arizona. This plant will start producing in the second quarter of 2018 and will serve growing customer demand for specialty cans in the southwestern U.S.

Carlos Medeiros, president, Beverage Packaging North & Central America, said,"These transformational actions will optimize our plant network, realign our standard 12-ounce beverage can and end capacity, increase our manufacturing flexibility and drive efficiencies so we can better compete with other packaging substrates."

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Ball will record a total after-tax charge of approximately $22 million, primarily for employee severance, pensions and other benefits, facility shutdown costs, and asset impairment and disposal costs, for the closure of Birmingham, Chatsworth and Longview.

“Birmingham, Chatsworth and Longview employees may be provided benefits and outplacement services in accordance with the bargaining process, and are eligible to apply for job openings within Ball,” according to the company press release.