Alcoa charts growth plan in line with China

By Lyv Chang (China Daily) Updated: 2015-09-09 09:35

Premier Li Keqiang meets a group of international business leaders in Beijing on June 9, 2015, including Klaus Kleinfeld (center), chairman and CEO of US aluminum producer Alcoa. [Photo/Xinhua]

Before the Summer Davos held in Dalian, Liaoning province, from Wednesday to Friday, Klaus Kleinfeld, chairman and CEO of Alcoa, the lightweight metals leader, shared his insights into his company's growth with China Daily reporter Lyv Chang.

This year's Summer Davos revolves around the theme of "charting a new course for growth". How is Alcoa charting its route for growth and transformation?

Our transformation goals are twofold. The first is to build Alcoa's value-added businesses that serve high-growth, high-margin markets. With our recent acquisitions and organic investments, we have broadened our capabilities to become a lightweight multimaterial powerhouse to support that objective. The second is about making our commodity businesses, including bauxite, alumina and aluminum, more competitive by moving further down the alumina and aluminum cost curves. These are the two key engines driving value.

In 2014, we delivered Alcoa's strongest full-year operating results since 2008, with revenue of $23.9 billion in 2014 providing a solid footing for the company this year.

We are focusing our value-added businesses on multiple growth markets, including in the aerospace and automotive sectors.

In the aerospace sector, we acquired jet-engine component maker Firth Rixson and aerospace structural parts maker TITAL to expand our capabilities and meet the growing demand for more efficient jet engines and increase our multimaterials portfolio.

Firth Rixson alone doubled Alcoa's average revenue content on key new-generation jet engine programs. Today, we can build more than 90 percent of all the structural and rotating components of a jet engine.

We also just acquired RTI International Metals, a global supplier of titanium and specialty metals products and services for the commercial aerospace, defense, oil and gas, and medical device markets.

On the organic investment side, we have developed a number of new innovations.

At the end of last year, we introduced the revolutionary Alcoa Micromill technology, which enables production of an automotive alloy that is twice as formable and 30 percent lighter than high-strength steel. Alcoa micromill technology reduces the time to transform molten metal into aluminum coil from 20 days to 20 minutes. This innovation is a breakthrough technology in the automotive industry. It will change the way cars look in the future.