Fort Wayne Metals (FWM) has acquired G&S Titanium (G&S), a company in Wooster, Ohio, that specializes in titanium and specialty alloy wire and bar drawing.

A press release said that G&S, founded in 1979, produces titanium medical bar and wire from 0.031 in. to 0.669 in., titanium beta alloy spring wire, strain hardened bar up to 2.5 in. and shaped and clad bars in a range of titanium and specialty alloys. The company will remain in its current facilities and operate under the name G&S Bar and Wire, LLC.

The acquisition, the release said, will allow Fort Wayne Metals to better support critical applications in the medical device industry by adding new products and capabilities to their portfolio. "Over the years, we have continually expanded our range of products and services in the realm of titanium and specialty alloys," said FWM Chairman and CEO Scott Glaze. "G&S is helping us increase our footprint even further, which will allow us to serve our customers better – for example by providing them with larger diameter materials. We’re well familiar with the quality G&S provides and the deep technical knowledge of their people, and look forward to learning from each other as we grow together."

An ISO 9001, ISO 13485 and AS 9100 registered company, FWM notes that it has more than 1,000 full-and part-time employees at its corporate headquarters in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and operations in Columbia City, Indiana, and Castlebar, Ireland.

ACINOX, a Cuban company that manufactures stainless steel, has signed a contract valued at US$30 million with a Russian company to modernize its production of wire rod.

A report at spanacom.com said that ACINOX signed an agreed with Russia’s YUMZ signed the contract to modernize a wire rod manufacturing plant at the 35th International Fair of Havana, (FIHAV 2017). The deal calls for the supply of a complete wire rolling line, including the furnace, as well as machinery to produce the wire rod at a plant in the eastern Cuban province of Las Tunas.

The story cited ACINOX Director Enrique Pazos as telling the state Cuban News Agency that the investment will allow up to 177,000 tons annual production once the project starts operating at the beginning of 2020. YUMZ will subcontract a "highly qualified and experienced Italian entity," which will supply 60% of the equipment required for the investment, he said. The Russian company will also participate in the process of commissioning the updated line and will be responsible for the training of Cuban personnel will work in the production.

The story said that Russia was one of the 63 countries that attended FIHAV. Russian Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce Georgy Kalamanov, who heads the delegation of his country to the Cuban Fair, said that there are other projects are also planned to expand collaboration in the chemical industry, to modernize the light steel industry, and areas of maritime transport and agriculture. Russia was described as the fourth most active partner of Cuba, behind China, Venezuela and Spain. Of note, it said that, "In addition to strengthening cooperation economic-three years ago, Russia canceled 90% of the debt incurred by the island...as both countries support each other in the political arena."

ABB announced that it has signed an agreement to sell its Huntersville, North Carolina, cable factory to Southwire Company, LLC, for an undisclosed price.

A press release said that the sale of the plant is in line with ABB’s Next Level strategy to continuously optimize its business portfolio. The 240,000-sq-ft plant produces high-voltage and extra-high-voltage underground transmission cables, ranging from 230kV to 400kV. ABB noted that it will continue to produce high-voltage land and subsea cables from its manufacturing facility in Karlskrona, Sweden. ABB and Southwire will also pursue a business partnership to leverage the facility for the land cable portion of certain HVDC projects.

“We remain fully committed to the North American market and to the high-voltage cables business. The decision to divest this factory is in line with our Next Level strategy and focus on optimizing our operations, exploring new business models and building partnerships,” said Claudio Facchin, president of ABB’s Power Systems division. “We are pleased that the Huntersville facility will be in the hands of Southwire, a well-established, innovation-focused company and look forward to building on our new business relationship.”

Per a past ABB release, the company opened the $90 million plant, designed to have some 130 employees, in 2012. The high-voltage cable production was to target markets that include wind and solar installations. “The plant has a distinctive 131 meter extrusion tower, built to allow the insulation material to cool symmetrically around the metal cable conductor. It is ABB’s first high-voltage cable plant outside Europe, and will manufacture high-voltage transmission cables for both AC and DC applications.”

The acquisition, which is expected to close in the third quarter, results in Southwire adding extra high-voltage cable products to its portfolio and expands its capacity to produce high-voltage cable, a market in which the company notes it is already a leading manufacturer.“We are committed to growing in the global wire and cable market. Today, we take another step toward that goal as we further expand our manufacturing capacity and expand our lineup of products that are made in America for new and existing customers, both here and around the world,” Southwire President and CEO Stu Thorn said. “In addition, today’s agreement paves the way for us to develop a strategic relationship with a global company like ABB, a recognized leader in power and automation technologies.”

Located on a 20-acre site in Commerce Station Business Park, the Huntersville plant fits nicely with Southwire’s family of manufacturing facilities and customer service centers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Honduras and China, the Southwire release said. “Southwire is a U.S.-based manufacturer expanding on U.S. soil,” Thorn said. “We are building a business that will be sustainable into future generations by continually evolving to meet the changing needs of our industry.”

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and state-owned China Telecom are among those taking part in discussions about building a 10,500 km fiber-optic link across the Arctic Circle that would cost an estimated 700 million euros. A report in the South China Morning Post said that China is in discussions with Finland, Japan, Russia and Norway "to create the fastest data connection between Europe and China as soon as 2020." The story said that the faster connectivity with help European financial centers and data hubs, and fits into China’s long-term "Belt and Road" trade-and-infrastructure initiative. The project, made logistically feasible by melting in the Arctic region, furthers China’s growing ties with Finland, the story said. It noted that Xi Jinping is the first Chinese president to visit the country since 1995. A freight railway between the Finnish city of Kouvola and China’s Xian recently opened and Finnair is seeking to become a regional hub for flights between the two continents. Cinia Group, a Finnish government-owned information and communications technology company, has a prominent role in the so-called "Northeast Passage" cable project and is looking for partners. "It has been widely expressed that this cable route would provide a game changer in the industry," said Jukka-Pekka Joensuu, an executive adviser to Cinia. Estimates suggest that the new cable could cut the time delay from Asia to Europe in half.

The Belau Submarine Cable Corporation (BSCC) and NEC Corporation (NEC) announced the completion of a new submarine cable that will connect the Republic of Palau to Guam and onward connectivity to Asia, North America and the rest of the world. A press release said that the Palau Spur will interconnect with the existing SEA-US submarine cable—which connects the Philippines and Indonesia to the west coast of the U.S. via Guam and Hawaii—from a branching unit located between the Philippines and Guam. The Palau Spur has an initial design capacity of 500 Gbps. NEC is supplying some 200 km of cable for the project, including a pre-lay shore end of about 7 km. "Yesterday, this island nation was still dependent on satellite communications, but from today, this new cable will bring information at the speed of light, improving the quality of life for those living in and traveling to Palau," said Toru Kawauchi, general manager of NEC’s Submarine Network Division." Palau, an archipelago of over 500 islands that is part of the Micronesia region in the western Pacific Ocean, has a population of about 21,700 people.