Alcoa wins $1.1B, 10-year contract for jet engine components

Alcoa Inc. announced on Monday a 10-year, $1.1 billion agreement with Pratt & Whitney for jet engine components, including aluminum fan blades using alloys produced at the Alcoa Technical Center in Upper Burrell.

The contract signed at the Farnborough Air Show in the U.K. comes as Alcoa is expanding in aerospace. Its engineered products segment, which includes aerospace, had record second-quarter operating profit, and Alcoa hopes to add to that with the $3 billion acquisition of a jet-engine components maker last month.

Pratt & Whitney, a division of United Technologies Corp., is a leading jet engine manufacturer.

Alcoa said key parts it will produce include the first-ever aluminum fan blade for jet engines. It plans to use aluminum and aluminum-lithium produced at the technical center and in Lafayette, Ind., for front fan blades, manufactured at its Cleveland, Ohio, plant. Other plants in Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey and Texas will supply blades, vanes and structural components, using nickel-based superalloys, titanium as well as aluminum.

“We're going where no materials scientist has gone before,” said Alcoa CEO Klaus Kleinfeld. “Combining Alcoa's proprietary alloys and unique manufacturing processes with Pratt & Whitney's design, we cracked the code on forging an aluminum fan blade that is lighter and enables better fuel efficiency.”

An advanced gear system design allows the jet-engine fan to rotate at a slower speed and the hot section to operate at higher speeds, optimizing the running conditions of both.

“This is another step in the right direction for Alcoa as it continues to grow its aerospace business,” said analyst Anthony Rizzuto, Jr. of Cowen & Co.

Last month, Alcoa said it will acquire U.K.-based Firth Rixson Ltd., which Alcoa said will boost aerospace revenue by 20 percent to about $4.8 billion a year.

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