voestalpine officially began the three-year construction phase for its special steel plant in Kapfenberg, Austria. Once it opens in 2021, the fully digitized facility will produce approximately 205,000 tons of high-performance steels per year for the international aerospace and automotive industries. The project is expected to create more than 3,000 highly skilled jobs in the region over the long term.

Once fully operational, the plant will replace the existing voestalpine Böhler Edelstahl GmbH plant in Kapfenberg and will produce premium-quality pre-materials for aircraft components, tools for the automotive industry, and equipment for oil-and-gas extraction and for the 3D printing of highly complex metal parts. The centerpiece of the plant is an electric-arc furnace (EAF) that melts down ultra-pure scrap combined with various alloy metals into special steels. The EAF will operate using only electricity generated from renewables.