Bridgnorth looks beyond litho with Lotte deal

Bridgnorth’s US business has long supplied lithographic sheet to the US market. Yet, demand in that segment has contracted over time.

US lithographic market narrows

Bridgnorth’s production base serves several applications, including lithographic sheet. Its assets include two casthouses, two rolling mills, two lithographic centers, two cold rolling mills, a multi-slitting line and other finishing equipment.

US trade data show part of the change. Imports from the UK under HTS 7606.11.3060 fell 42% in non-alloyed aluminum plate, sheet and strip exceeding 0.2 millimeter in thickness.

The classification covers more than lithographic sheet. Even so, the UK accounted for 41% of imports under the code from 2020 through 2025, more than any other country. Oman ranked second at 35%. Together, the two countries accounted for more than 75% of imports. Aside from China at a little more than 7%, the remaining countries held shares of about 3.5% or less.

Bridgnorth can use its rolling and finishing equipment in applications that require similar processing. Those applications rely less on printing demand.

Thin-gauge aluminum targets cooling

Bridgnorth announced in January it would install a refurbished Schmutz line at a cost of £600,000. The line brings more thin-gauge finishing in-house.

The company linked the investment to underfloor heating and cooling systems for automotive applications and data centers. The line provides slitting and winding capacity for thin-gauge aluminum reels, including material for US customers.

Bridgnorth also installed molten-metal filtration equipment as it returned key process areas to round-the-clock operations.

By July, Bridgnorth said it had completed the slitting line. The project brought investment at the plant under Viohalco ownership to £180 million. The company said it had served printing, packaging and construction customers before adding specialized coil for energy applications.

The equipment does not make lithographic sheet, HVAC products, and battery materials interchangeable. Each application has separate specifications and qualification requirements. But the applications do use Bridgnorth’s existing capabilities in rolling, gauge control, surface quality and finishing.

Those overlapping capabilities are most evident in Bridgnorth’s agreement with Lotte.

Lotte adds a US battery foil outlet

Bridgnorth announced June 19 it had signed a five-year agreement to supply battery-grade aluminum to Lotte Aluminium Materials USA in Elizabethtown, Ky.

The companies completed joint development and qualification work before signing the contract. Bridgnorth said Lotte would use the material in batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage systems.

Lotte announced the Kentucky project several years earlier.

Kentucky announced the project in 2022 as a $238.7 million investment. Lotte Chemical and Lotte Aluminium planned annual cathode foil capacity of 36,000 tons for EV batteries. Production was initially expected to begin in 2025.

SMS Group, a heavy industrial machinery OEM, said the plant would include six cold rolling mills and four slitting lines. The equipment would use automated material handling and production control systems.

Kentucky permit records issued May 15, 2023, list four slitters, two roll grinders, and an aluminum scrap baler. The records list maximum aluminum coil production at 36,690 tons per year.

Construction contractor Sundt said the facility was substantially complete in summer 2025. The project required equipment for ulta-thin foil made from high-purity aluminum alloys.

Equipment supplier Achenbach later reported commissioning the fourth, fifth and sixth foil “rolling mills.” The work completed the projects second commissioning phase.

EV demand changes the market

Lotte announced the plant when US EV growth shaped much of the investment case for domestic battery production.

US EV demand has since fallen below earlier forecasts. For example, Kelley Blue Book estimated second-quarter 2026 EV sales fell 20.5% from the year earlier period. Sales fell 27.3% year over year in the first quarter.

The scale of Lotte’s planned capacity also leaves room for markets beyond current US EV demand. Achenbach has said the plant’s 36,000-ton annual cathode foil capacity would be sufficient for about 4 million EVs.

For comparison, Kelley Blue Book reported 171,678 US sales among the 10 highest-volume EV models in the second quarter. Holding that quarterly rate constant would put annual sales at about 686,700 vehicles. Even if Lotte supplied the entire aluminum foil requirement for those models, its stated nameplate capacity would theoretically leave the equivalent of more than 3.3 million electric vehicles of annual capacity.

Still, the difference in scale highlights the potential for using specialty aluminum capacity for other purposes.

Energy storage has added demand as data center construction increases electricity and backup-power requirements. Battery demand has not followed electric vehicle sales alone.

CRU’s Battery Value Chain Market Outlook published June 25 estimates North American utility storage demand for lithium-ion phosphate batteries by gigawatt-hours will nearly quadruple over the next ten years. Aluminum foil is used in the makeup of the cathode, providing the current collector for the lithium-ion phosphate coating.

The shift gives battery-grade aluminum another potential demand source.

Bridgnorth also enters that market with experience in high-purity 1XXX-series aluminum and a trade advantage relative to many other foreign suppliers. Most UK-origin semi-fabricated aluminum products remain subject to a 25% US Section 232 tariff rather than the 50% rate applied more broadly, provided at least 95% of the aluminum content was smelted or recently cast in the U.K.

High-purity 1XXX-series aluminum is particularly well suited to that distinction. Because they contain little alloying material, a larger share of the finished product may consist of aluminum that was smelted or cast in the UK, potentially making the 95% threshold less restrictive than it would be for more heavily alloyed products.

Data centers add cooling demand

Data centers also support demand for thin-gauge aluminum. Recent AMU Summit discussions identified fin stock and microchannel products as key cooling applications.

Announced projects represented nearly 26 million pounds of additional annual foil demand in the analysis presented at the conference. Battery storage and electrical infrastructure added demand linked to data center construction.

Bridgnorth’s January investment connects its thin-gauge capacity with data-center heating and cooling systems. Its Lotte agreement creates a separate route into battery materials and energy storage.

Lotte has not said its Kentucky plant has moved away from EV batteries, nor has Bridgnorth said material supplied to Lotte will serve data centers. Nonetheless, the two developments show how end markets for specialty foil and thin-gauge sheet have changed since Lotte announced the Kentucky plant in 2022.

Bridgnorth also operates within Viohalco’s aluminum network. Elval produces flat-rolled aluminum for HVAC and refrigeration markets. Symetal produces foil from 6 to 200 microns. Another Viohalco venture supplies heat exchanger material.

Bridgnorth does not need one market to replace its smaller US lithographic sheet business. Its recent investment and customer activity support a wider mix of specialty coil and foil-feed applications.

Avgerinos now takes over as that diversification reaches further into North America. He identified the region, along with electrification and energy, as an area for growth when his appointment was announced. The Lotte agreement and Bridgnorth’s thin-gauge investments give that strategy an existing foothold in the market.