Showing Its Mettle: ; New Ownership Changes Little at Alloy Plant

By Susan Williams

susanwilliams@wvgazette.com

ALLOY – From inside a plant complex that started operations more than 70 years ago, Claude Bess said the only thing that has changed is the name on the sign.

Globe Metallurgical Inc. bought the Alloy silicon-producing plant from Elkem Metals Co. last December. The sign on U.S. 60 east of Charleston now reads: West Virginia Alloys Inc.

Before that, Globe was the Alloy plant’s main competitor in the silicon metals business.

“They were our U.S. competitors,” said Bess, the plant’s human resources manager. “It was a good thing to have Globe buy us because Globe is in business to produce ferro-alloys. We are the largest facility that produces silicon metals in the world.”

The president of Globe, Arden Sims, is a Webster County native, who started his working life at the Alloy plant building a furnace. Sims visits the Alloy plant on a regular basis.

The plant does not make a finished product. It sells its silicon metals to chemical companies, aluminum companies, foundries and ceramic companies. The products made at the Alloy plant end up in car waxes, cosmetics, computers, car parts, caulk and other commonly used items.

“There are many applications for our silicon,” Bess said. “The market is very good right now.”

Like his father, Bess started at the plant working for Union Carbide.

“Union Carbide was such a great employer,” he said. “They were so pro-employee.”

When Norway-based Elkem bought the plant from Carbide, it instituted “a different management style,” he said.

Elkem opted to sell because silicon metal ended up being a small part of its operations, Bess said.

Under Globe’s ownership, the plant will be able to focus on competing with overseas players, he said.

“They [the new owners] told us they want to run full out and sell everything that is produced,” Bess said. “It’s that simple: make it and sell it; it’s a simple philosophy.”

Bess said he does not foresee job cuts.

“We have such experienced workers,” he said. “They make a quality product, and they want to see the plant prosper.”

At its peak, the 100-acre complex employed more than 2,000. Now there are 209, 171 of whom are union members making the metal.

The plant is unique in part because it runs five “submerged-arc” furnaces -those designed for metallurgy – one of which used to be the world’s biggest, Bess said.

Operators employ some old-fashioned approaches in dealing with the plant’s high-tech furnaces. To open the blazing hot furnaces, for instance, workers shoot a slug from an 8-gauge shotgun.

In a matter of minutes, the plant can analyze a batch of metal while it is still molten, to make sure it has the right combination of ingredients to suit a customer’s order.

“If it’s out of grade, it’s not good,” Bess said.

Optimally, the furnaces run 24 hours a day. The plant complex relies on hydropower taken from the New River. The hydro plant is near Gauley Bridge, where the New and the Gauley come together to form the Kanawha River.

The Alloy plant sits on the banks of the Kanawha. It uses a coal- fired boiler on site and power bought from American Electric Power. Another company just completed paperwork a few weeks ago to buy the historic hydro plant.

Bess said the plant can rely on the water power to be adequate about six to eight months a year. In times when the river is running low, it supplements power sources.

Last summer, a slowdown led to a few layoffs, but Bess said all of the workers have since been called back to work.

The first power station for what would become the Alloy plant dates back to 1898 in Glen Ferris, according to Tim McKinney, author of the book “Elkem Metals.”

In 1907, the Electro Metallurgical Co., a subsidiary of Union Carbide, bought out Willson Aluminum Co., the company that built the power station in Glen Ferris, according to McKinney.

Beginning in 1930, Rinehart and Dennis started construction to bring the water of the New River through a tunnel to generate the hydropower the plant still uses. During the Great Depression, they found plenty of people who wanted to work. It was an engineering marvel, but workers cut through silicon and hundreds died from lung disease.

In its heyday, the plant also operated the Glen Ferris Inn and the Hawks Nest Golf Club, but those assets were sold off over the years.

To contact staff writer Susan Williams, use e-mail or call 348- 5112.

(c) 2006 Charleston Gazette, The. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.