Broomfield-based Ball Corp. on Thursday said it is in the final planning stages to build a beverage- can manufacturing facility in western India.
Plans to locate the facility near Aurangabad – the beer capital of India – still require government approval, spokesman Scott McCarty said, but expectations are to begin can production by mid-2009.
“India is one of the largest potential beverage-can markets in the world, and we have long had an interest in doing business there,” said R. David Hoover, Ball’s chairman, president and chief executive.
The plant, whose size, cost and precise location are not being disclosed until the approvals are complete, will be run by its subsidiary, Ball Packaging Europe.
The firm has been exporting cans to India for several years, McCarty said.
The firm is a supplier of metal and plastic packaging products for beverage, food and household customers, and of aerospace technologies and services, mostly to the U.S. government.
It has not been determined whether the Indian plant will produce steel or aluminum cans, McCarty said.
