Ball looks to further scale up North American aluminum can capacity

Pittsburgh — Ball Corporation will look to further expand its North American aluminum can production capacity, beyond its previously announced 6 billion unit volume increase planned by the end of 2021, as demand for beverage cans in the region outpaces previous projections, company Chief Operating Officer Daniel Fisher said Aug. 6.

"Our initial plans to add 6 billion units of capacity in our North American business by the end of 2021 have been adjusted upward following recent contract discussions," Fisher told investors during a call. "We will proceed with fully scaling out our new facilities in Arizona and the northeastern US sooner rather than later."

Fisher said the extent of Ball's capacity expansion beyond the originally-planned volume increase will depend on upcoming contract negotiations with customers.

"We will continue to update that number for you as those things become more firm," he said. "It's clearly reliant on execution and hiring employees and ramping up lines, but you have got to have contracts on the back of it, and some of those contract negotiations are still ongoing."

Fisher said the North American beverage can market, which he estimated to be about 100 billion cans, was growing faster than the 4% to 6% increase previously forecast for the near-term.

"It's been 8% or 10%...so you're talking about upwards of 8 billion to 10 billion incremental cans in one year alone," he said. "Now this is a unique year, but we think as we go forward, that 4% to 6%, based on what we see, is trending to the upper part of that range. That's why we're accelerating our growth investments."

Fisher said Ball was also needed to import a substantial amount of aluminum cans to meet US demand, which has been driven by increased at-home consumption during the coronavirus pandemic.

Ball's net sales in its North and Central America beverage packaging segment rose to $2.45 billion in the first half of the year, up from $2.42 billion in the same period last year.

Overall, Ball posted net earnings of $115 million on $5.59 billion in sales in H1, down from a $314 million profit on sales of $5.80 billion in H1 2019.