The plant, which opened in 1989, began life as a two-line aluminium plant and was converted to steel seven years later in response to customer needs at the time.
Deeside ends plant
Oliver Graham, CEO, Ardagh Metal Beverage, said the conversion of the plant has enhanced its manufacturing footprint and it now operates two aluminium beverage can plants in the UK, at Wrexham and Rugby, supported by its recent investment in its Deeside ends plant.
“This positions Ardagh to offer beverage customers greater choice and flexibility in the future,” he added.
The project, which started in Q4 2017 meant the company had to optimize processing machinery with Wrexham and other locations across Europe to continue operations during downtime.
Ardagh continues to have one plant in Weissenthurm, Germany, that still produces steel cans.
Beverage Daily reported in February last year, the investment is a continued development of Ardagh Group's recently acquired beverage can business.
It acquired ‘certain metal manufacturing assets and support locations’ from Ball Corporation and Rexam for $3.42bn in 2016.
Circular Economy
The company acquired 10 beverage can manufacturing plants and two end plants in Europe, seven beverage can manufacturing plants and one end plant in the US, two beverage can manufacturing plants in Brazil and innovation and support functions in Germany, the UK, Switzerland and the US.
Metal has the highest recycling rates of all packaging materials in Europe, contributing to the principles of a circular economy.
