North American Windpower: Katana Summit Sells Nebraska Wind Tower Manufacturing Facility

by NAW Staff on Tuesday 27 November 2012

Valmont Industries Inc. - a manufacturer of engineered products for infrastructure and mechanized irrigation equipment for agriculture, and a provider of coating services - has announced that it has acquired wind turbine tower manufacturer Katana Summit's 300,000 square-foot Columbus, Neb., manufacturing facility.

In September, Katana Summit said that due to federal policy uncertainty, the company would close the Columbus factory, as well as its Ephrata, Wash., facility, if it was unable to find a buyer for those operations. The company did not respond to requests for comment.

Valmont says it intends to repurpose the facility for the manufacture of steel transmission structures for the utility industry.

“The addition of the Columbus, Neb., facility will immediately provide needed incremental manufacturing capacity to serve our utility customers,” says Earl Foust, group president of Valmont’s Utility Support Structures division. “I expect when modifications are complete in 2014, the plant will have approximately $100 million in additional annual capacity.”

The specific terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

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