Ball Corp, the Westminster, Colorado-headquartered aluminum packaging maker plans to increase output from its new production lines in Rome, Georgia, and Fort Worth, Texas over the next two years.
Both the plants were commissioned in mid-2020. In 2022, the company plans to get its manufacturing facility in Bowling Green, Kentucky online, which will add to its supply chain to feed the rising demand for aluminum cans in North America and across the world, the company indicated in its 2020 earnings report. Moreover, the cans maker plans to continue spending on organic growth projects.
John A Hayes, chief executive officer of Ball said that the company continues to see a growing demand for its aluminum packaging products and aerospace technologies and will capitalize on this need in 2021 and beyond through acquisitions like the one in Brazil last year and through greenfield projects like the one in the Czech Republic and in Pennsylvania, USA.
The company’s consolidated net sales in 2020 tallied at $11.78bn up from $11.47bn in the previous year. Net sales in Q4 2020 also rose to $3.1bn from $2.72bn during the same quarter of 2019.
Ball’s North and Central America beverage packaging division continued to lead the company’s business with the region’s sales in 2020 at $5.07bn up from $4.78bn in 2019. Net sales in its EMEA and South America beverage packaging divisions rose slightly during the same period, tallying at $2.94bn and $1.69bn compared with $2.85bn and $1.67bn, respectively.
In Q4 2020, sales in North and Central America rose to $1.3bn from $1.1bn in the same quarter of the previous year. During the same period, sales in EMEA and South America increased to $768mn and $529mn from $642mn and $460mn, respectively.
Ball’s aerospace division reported net sales of $1.74bn in 2020 up from $1.48bn in the previous year. The division’s fourth-quarter sales stood at $420mn up from $398mn in Q4 2019.
The company’s consolidated net earnings rose to $987mn in 2020 from $861mn in the previous year and increased to $272mn in Q4 2020 from $238mn in the same quarter of 2019.