The expansion, combined with two recent acquisitions, will double WWR capacity at Keystone’s Engineered Wire Products (EWP) subsidiary, it said in a statement. In 2014, the subsidiary acquired WWR facilities in Las Cruces, N.M., and Warren, Ohio, and expanded them this year.

Its original WWR facility is in Upper Sandusky, Ohio.

The company said the latest move is part of the subsidiary’s overall expansion strategy. Adding WWR production capabilities in Texas not only will expand its footprint, but will allow it to initiate service into areas where future facilities are planned, the company said.

Keystone also announced that is has upgraded the arc shop and rod mill at its Keystone Steel & Wire mini-mill in Peoria, Ill. The upgrades will allow the mill to produce high-carbon and cold-headed quality billet and rod.

The mill will be the primary rod feedstock supplier to EWP’s expanded Texas facility, but it will buy from other producers as necessary “to help support future growth and expansion of concrete reinforcement and similar value-added products beyond KSW’s current steel rod capacity.”

“The integration with (the Keystone Steel & Wire mill) also provides EWP an assured supply of steel rod that meets the requirements for customer’s projects requiring ‘made in the USA’ materials, while shifting and increasing its productive rod capacity to products utilized in concrete reinforcement and similar value added markets,” the company said in a statement.

Keystone Consolidated Industries CEO Chris Armstrong said that being able to internally source steel from the Peoria mini-mill gives EWP a competitive advantage. 

“This competitive advantage is a major tenet of the expansion strategy we commenced in 2014, a strategy which I look forward to continuing through additional organic and acquisitive strides with the full support of our shareholder in the months and years to come,” he said.