Pace expands plant closures, removing die-casting capacity from US network

The disclosure comes shortly after news the company’s Harrison, Ark., die-casting facility will also shutter on a similar timeline. The closures point to a broader restructuring of Pace’s casting footprint across multiple states.

Pace Industries did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Michigan closures or earlier questions regarding the planned shutdown of its Arkansas facility.

Latimer plant

State permitting records indicate the Latimer Port City Metal Products plant in Muskegon operated a multi-furnace aluminum melting system supporting die-casting operations.

The most recent installation authorization governing the plant was issued in 2017 and remains active. The permit covered four natural gas-fired aluminum reverberatory furnaces, enclosed launder systems and die-casting machines. Furnaces were configured for melting clean aluminum charge, including ingot and internally generated scrap.

The melting equipment included a reverberatory furnace with about 45,000 pounds of holding capacity and a 5,000-pound-per-hour melt rate; two smaller reverberatory furnaces with 11,000-pound holding capacities; one 1,250-pound-per-hour melt rates each; one larger reverberatory furnace with roughly 40,000 pounds of holding capacityl; and a 3,500-pound-per-hour melt rate.

Together, the four furnaces represented a combined nameplate melting capacity of about 44,000 metric tons per year if operated continuously, according to public records.

The permit sequence for the site shows several revisions between 2015 and 2017, suggesting the furnace configuration installed during that period represented the final configuration prior to the recent closure announcement. No subsequent installation permits for the Latimer facility appear in state records.

Black Creek plant

Records indicate the facility associated with Black Creek Port City Metal Products in Muskegon operated aluminum melting equipment supporting die-casting production within the Port City industrial complex.

A permit from 2009 authorized two natural gas-fired aluminum reverberatory furnaces used for melting aluminum charge for casting operations.

According to the document, installed melting equipment included one reverberatory furnace with a 3,500-pound-per-hour melt rate and one smaller natural-gas fired furnace with a 600-pound-per-hour melt rate.

Together, the two furnaces represented a combined nameplate melting capacity of roughly 16,000 metric tons of aluminum melt capacity if operated continuously.

Pace market context

The Latimer and Black Creek facilities accounted for roughly 60,000 metric tons per year of aluminum melt capacity based on the nameplate capacities of the furnaces authorized in their most recent installation permits.

The closures therefore remove a portion of Pace Industries’ aluminum die-casting footprint in Muskegon. In addition, the company issued a WARN notice for its Harrison, Ark., die-casting plant, a much larger facility with an estimated 175,000 metric tons per year of nameplate casting capacity. That site is scheduled to close by April, eliminating about 178 jobs and removing a sizable aluminum and zinc casting operation from the regional supply chain.

Combined, the Muskegon and Harrison closures imply a reduction of roughly 235,000 metric tons per year of nameplate melt capacity across Pace’s network.

The Harrison plant generated significant volumes of internally produced scrap associated with die-casting operations. Public records indicate a portion of metal-bearing residues and waste were transferred to a Pace-affiliated recycling operation in Muskegon at an address associated with Port City Metal Products operations, less than five miles from both the Latimer and Black Creek facilities.

Other waste shipments from the Harrison plant were directed to third-party recyclers and processors associated with toll processing aluminum dross as well as feedstock used in aluminum deoxidizer production.

While the precise operational relationship between the Arkansas and Michigan facilities could not be independently confirmed, the timing and structure of the closures suggest Pace’s Muskegon casting operations may have been linked to a broader internal recycling and scrap network with the company’s die-casting system.

Port City Boulevard plant

Pace Industries will maintain an operation in Muskegon listed on the company’s website at 2281 Port City Blvd.

The site operates under Alloy Resources Corp, a secondary aluminum processing facility associated with Pace. State filings describe the operation as a processor of aluminum scrap and residues generated by die-casting operations including turnings, skimmings and furnace byproducts.

State records show the facility operated reverberatory and rotary furnaces used to recover aluminum from scrap and production residues. At various points the plant included furnaces with holding capacities of roughly 80,000 pounds, 50,000 pounds, and 20,000 pounds.

Unlike the Latimer and Black Creek facilities, which were configured primarily for melting clean aluminum charge in support of die-casting production, the Port City Boulevard operation functions as a secondary aluminum processor, handling scrap streams generated within Pace’s manufacturing network as well as other aluminum-bearing materials.

Because the facility is not listed in the Michigan WARN notice tied to the Muskegon closures, Pace appears likely to retain at least a limited operational footprint in the region through its scrap processing.

If the Harrison and Muskegon casting closures reduce the amount of internally generated scrap flowing through Pace’s system, that could alter the economics of downstream operations that relied on those scrap streams as feedstock.

If scrap generated across a manufacturing network is first directed toward higher-value production needs or external toll-processing arrangements, with remaining volumes available for other internal operations, a sharp reduction in internally generated scrap — whether from the Harrison facility to the two Muskegon plants or from all three facilities to the broader Pace network — could slash amount of lower-cost feedstock available to support smaller or lower-margin casting operations within the network.

US market context

Data from the US Geological Survey’s (USGS) Mineral Industry Surveys provide a benchmark to place the Pace closures within in the context of broader US aluminum casting activity.

For 2024, the sum of monthly US shipments of secondary die-casting alloys, defined by the USGS as 380 and variations and 13% silicon-bearing alloys, 360 and variations that have a maximum threshold of 0.6% percent copper content, totaled about 244,400 metric tons for the full year. Over the same period, combined die-casting, sand-casting, and permanent mold alloys totaled roughly 625,000 metric tons.

Using the most recent available figures for 2025 to illustrate how those figures tend to vary year to year, annualizing the January-November data produces comparable totals of roughly 276,436 metric tons of die-casting alloys and 644,727 metric tons for the broader casting alloy category.

Comparing those figures with the combined nameplate capacity of the three Pace facilities scheduled to close — about 235,000 metric tons per year — illustrates a substantial portion of the reported US output of secondary die-casting alloys.

At face value, the comparison highlights the scale of the capacity reduction. However, it also highlights an important structural characteristic of the North American die-casting industry.

Pace describes itself as operating the largest die-casting footprint in North America, yet the capacity associated with just three facilities approaches the magnitude of the annual die-casting alloy output reported by USGS.

Given that hundreds of casting operations operate across the US, this relationship suggests that many facilities likely operate at utilization rates well below theoretical nameplate capacity, reflecting the fragmented structure of the sector and the cyclical nature of demand from end markets such as automotive.

Nevertheless, the Pace closures illustrate how the removal of even a small number of facilities can represent a meaningful share of the country’s reported secondary aluminum casting output.