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State, region has high hopes for steel mill
The German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp AG is expected to announce next month whether it will build a $2.9 billion, 2,700- worker mill in south Alabama or south Louisiana. The plant would be on a 3,500- acre tract east of Highway 43 in the Calvert area, some 35 miles south of Jackson and about 50 miles south of Grove Hill. The construction of the mill is expected to employ some 29,000. In addition to the 2,700 direct jobs, as many as 52,000 spinoff jobs would be created when the mill starts full production in 2010. Jackson, especially, is preparing for a tremendous impact. The Clarke County community would be closer to the mill than some areas of west Mobile. The facility will manufacture and process carbon steel and stainless steel for automobile and other manufacturing needs. It will include a hot strip mill to process slabs from the company's new steel mill in Brazil as well as a cold rolling and hot-dip coating operation for the production of flat carbon steel end products. One of the drawbacks of the Alabama site is that steel coming in from Brazil would have to be offloaded from sea-going vessels and barged upriver to the plant site. The state has purchased much of Pinto Island at the mouth of the Mobile River to use as a staging point for the transfers. The Alabama Legislature increased the state's borrowing capacity by $400 million to help fund incentives for the plant earlier this year and voters will be called upon to approve the measure on June 5. Gov. Bob Riley has said that the $400 million is for a variety of industrial projects, not just ThyssenKrupp.
More incentives are being proposed in the current legislative session.
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