Barstow city to get an aluminium remelt and casting plant soon

The city of Barstow will soon receive the promised aluminium remelt and casting house although in a much smaller scale, a city official revealed last week.

Last March a megaproject was approved by the City Council, with a manufacturing complex of 3 million square-feet, costing $1.5 billion and the potential to employ more than 2,000 people. The project had to be dismissed because the high electricity costs in California would not allow the plant to run economically.

The new project with a 500,000 square-feet manufacturing unit and employing roughly 450 people would cost a little over $120 million and will not be affected by the high electricity costs due to its comparatively smaller size.

A new company named Mojave Aluminium Company will be responsible for developing the project, in the same Lenwood site that was slated for the bigger project but now only using 258 acres of land whereas the previous estimation had exceeded 900 acres.

Besides the remelt and cast plant, there would also be two office buildings, a substation, a water treatment plant, storage area and site lighting in the complex. The plant will aim for a practical and achievable production target of 350,000 to 380,000 tons of aluminium billet a year.