Document wg95qYqnR0py1Lq1zNOOnvzE

news release FOR TURTHER INFORMATION: Harold E. Reagan Aluminum Company of America Point Comfort, Texas 77978 December 22, 1969 ALCOA B______ I SPECIAL TO THE PORT LAVACA MAGAZINE Barely two decades ago--February 11, 1950, to be exact--Alcoa In troduced the aluminum industry to Texas by producing the state's first primary aluminum on the east bank of Lavaca Bay at Point Comfort. Since then, the industry has flourished in the Lone Star State. Alcoa has never stopped building and expanding. Today, Alcoa--the world's oldest and largest aluminum producer-- makes more metal here than in any other state. And in Just 20 years, Texas has climbed to the No. 2 producer of aluminum in the United States, second only to the State of Washington. Washington is the pacesetter because of its abundance of hydro-electric power or economical electrical energy--the key consideration for locating an aluminum smelter. In that Northwest state, four companies operate six smelters with an annual capacity of 916,000 tons. Texas is second with two companies, Alcoa and Reynolds, operating three smelters-with an annual capacity of 560,000 tons. - More - APC 005390 -2The Lone Star State--famous for its "bigger" and "better" boasts -- can outstrip the state of Washington in one respect. Last month, Alcoa added an eighth potline to its huge Rockdale, Texas Works to make it the world's largest aluminum smelter with an annual capacity of 275,000 tons. Alcoa's Point Comfort Operations--where the aluminum industry began in Texas--has a smelter with an annual capacity of 175,000 tons. But the massive Point Comfort facility is Alcoa's largest Texas outlay in both plant investment and employment. Besides a smelter, Point Comfort has a modern four-unit bauxite refining plant with an annual capacity of 900,000 tons of alumina (aluminum oxide), several accompanying satellite units, and an oil and gas division with over 150 producing wells. Point ComforTpias facilities producing cryolite, lime, aluminum fluoride, salt, caustic and chlorine, and fabricating and remelt ingot. The sprawling Point Comfort layout--over 3,000 acres in all--has come a long way since Alcoa's decision to make it the Company's first new plant location following World War II. To a passerby, it must have seemed questionable to locate one of the nation's largest metal facilities here. A tranquil terrain ideally suited to cattle was broken only by mesqulte, hulsache, and rattlesnakes. But Alcoa saw a lot of industrial possibilities such as economical power from natural gas, water transportation to world ports, a favorable yearround working climate, an adequate labor supply and plenty of land. Ground was broken for the new Point Comfort plant in May, 1948, with the late Texas-governor Beauford Jester, top Alcoa officials and an army of leading local citizens on hand. - More - APC 005391 -3The original plant was a three-potline smelter with an annual capacity of 57,000 tons of aluminum. Two more potlines were added in 1951, another in 1955 and the final, No. 7, wen.t on stream in 1958. Point Comfort's bauxite refining operations began in 1959 with com pletion of the first digestion unit. The second unit went on stream in 1960, the third followed in 1963 and the fourth was ready for business in 1965. Bauxite is shipped in from Suriname, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, and the alumina--or commercial ore--produced at Point Comfort Operations goes to Alcoa smelters around the world. The Point Comfort smelter uses only about 40 per cent of the locally produced alumina. Alloyed metal is cast into ingots at Point Comfort Operations, loaded aboard barges, towed through the Intra-Coastal Canal system and up the Mississippi River to Alcoa fabricating plants in Iowa and Other shipments go out regularly by rail and truck to Alcoa plants and customers throughout the United States. Alumina, electrolytes, carbon products and certain other materials are shipped to plants in Mexico, Suriname, Australia and Europe, leading to Point Comfort's ranking as Texas' 13th deep water port, and by tonnage, one of its most Important world trade centers. The new Matagorda Deep Draft Ship Channel, a 26-mile long channel which provides direct access from the plant to the sea, was Justified by the shipping tonnage to and from the Alcoa installation. The newest Alcoa "star" on the Texas horizon is a fabricating plant-- a cable mill--at Marshall. Limited production began early last year but the Marshall Works is still not completed. The plant--up to about 250 employees now-- - More - APC 005392 -4produces bare and covered aluminum electrical conductor products for the nation's fast-growing electrical utility Industry. Alcoa's three Texas plants have a combined employment of nearly 3,900 with an annual payroll of about $36 million. Through sales offices at Dallas, Houston and Lubbock, aluminum products from Alcoa's world wide operations are offered to Texas business and industry. Sales engineers from these three locations fan out across the Southwest, armed to the hilt with the expertise provided by the founder and leader of the world's aluminum Industry: Alcoa. Aluminum is a bright metal with an even brighter future. As it continues to find new markets, Alcoa's Texas operations will continue to grow and prosper. - 30 - APC 005393