The President of Aragon attended the laying of the first stone of the extension of the company Ronal Ibérica in the Platea logistics park today. The company manufacturers aluminium wheels. Installation of the company in the logistics platform will permit decongesting the current plant located on the La Paz industrial estate in Teruel.
Ronal Ibérica, which is a Ronal GROUP company, with head offices in Switzerland, currently has 480 workers at a plant covering 60, 000 square metres. The announcement by the company to invest 50 million euros in Platea, will permit consolidation of the current jobs and creation of eleven new ones. The aim is to increase production of wheels for automobiles from the current 2.2 million units to 2.6 million, as explained by the managing director of the Teruel plant, Dominik Wiederhold. The President of Aragon firmly defended the industry as the most solvent business sector, capable of creating better quality jobs and investing in R&D. Javier Lambán believes that “Teruel is lucky” to have a company like Ronal, which set up here 30 years ago. After acknowledging the effort made, the President of Aragon said that the administration still has a way to go.
In this sense, he is committed to investors to carry on facilitating favourable environments from the administration, and to fight for better rail communications with Teruel, in order to further enhance the logistics benchmark that Aragon is aiming to become, by joining forces with all the platforms of the three provinces. Lambán reminded the attendees about the project to connect the Mediterranean Corridor with the Atlantic Corridor, which will be highly beneficial for all companies in Aragon and for the ability to become a logistics nexus operating around 70% of the GDP generated in the north-east of the country.
The site where Ronal will build its new facilities covers 240, 000 square metres, which was purchased last year. A smelting works will be built on this site, expected to completed by the first quarter 2017. The company’s managers reminded the attendees that production in Teruel has increased by 42% since 2010, meaning that every day around 12,000 wheels are shipped out of the Teruel factory to car factories in Spain and Europe. If, after 2017, 800,000 wheels more can be manufactured, this will mean a production of around three million wheels, in other words, over 700, 000 cars per year. Dominik Wiederhold said that development of the Teruel factory can be qualified as a quality test, not only of the end product, but also of efficiency and compliance with delivery times, which has also made Ronal staff responsible.
Platea Gestión S. A. has quoted 445, 686 Euros for the necessary work to provide high pressure gas and medium voltage electricity supply for the extension of Ronal. This is a modification to the project that began last summer to develop the land on the industrial logistics platform, where the multinational will build its new facilities. The action planned includes the installation of a pipeline for high pressure gas distribution, thus providing the existing network with continuity and the fitting of a prefabricated building to house a transformation centre, along with the supply and installation of medium voltage equipment, power and medium voltage equipment, earthing system, ancillary items for operation of this equipment and connections to the adjoining high voltage networks. These installations will be ceded by the gas and electricity supply companies (Redexis and Endesa, respectively). The initial project, with a budget of 922, 719 Euros, includes the construction of roadways and the installation of street lighting and water supply channels, drainage and collection of run-off rain water, and also the electricity, gas and telecommunications supply networks. The modification will complete site development in terms of gas and electricity supply. At the event held today, the Councillor of Economy, Industry and Employment, Marta Gastón, and the Councillor of Education and Culture, Mayte Pérez were present along with the Mayoress of Teruel, Emma Buj. The company was represented at the event by Yvo Schnarrenberger, CEO of Ronal Group, and Dominik Wiederhold, among others.