Utah loses bid for a beryllium facility
Brush Wellman Inc. said Monday it has selected Elmore, Ohio, for the primary beryllium facility after also considering Delta. The new facility is expected to create 25 jobs.
The Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development in December approved an incentive of $700,000 to lure the project to Delta. It did not name the company at the time but said the jobs would pay more than twice the Millard County median wage.
Brush Wellman said Monday that it considered state and local incentives, the availability of a work force experienced in primary beryllium production, start-up support and proximity to other support services when it made its decision.
"The Ohio and Utah alternatives were extremely competitive, which made this a tough decision," Greg Gregory, primary beryllium facility project manager, said in a prepared statement. "Both sites offered advantages including excellent existing work forces and strong local and state support."
Gregory noted that the company's Delta operation — which has about 70 workers involved in mining and milling ore into an intermediate form for the Ohio facility — nonetheless could see an eventual increase in beryllium of perhaps 25 percent. About 120 jobs at Elmore related to the further processing of beryllium metal will be preserved, he said.
Several factors, including a large supply of primary beryllium from the government stockpile, led to the 2000 closing of the country's only primary beryllium production facility, one of several units operated by Brush Wellman in Elmore. The Elmore plant now has 580 employees.
Brush Wellman said the location for the new facility was determined partially through design and engineering work over the past year under a $9 million contract from the Department of Defense's Defense Production Act Title III Program. Middough Consulting of Cleveland is the primary design and engineering firm contracted for the project.
In a partnership under the program, Brush Wellman will provide technology, land, buildings and an ongoing operation for the facility, while the government will fund engineering, design and equipment. Construction is expected to take two to three years.
Brush Wellman Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cleveland-based Brush Engineered Materials Inc.
Contributing: Associated Press
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