Allegheny Technologies Inc. said Monday that it will build a $325 million titanium sponge facility in Rowley, Tooele County, creating 150 jobs.

The company said the jobs will pay an average of more than $45,000 annually. Shipments are expected to begin in the third quarter of 2008.

Titanium sponge is the elemental form of titanium metal, which is used in airplanes, medical devices such as hip joints, and in the oil and gas industry. Titanium is lighter than steel but very strong and corrosion resistant.

The Pittsburgh-based company said the new Utah plant will have an annual capacity of 24 million pounds, aimed to meet growing demand for the metal in the aerospace and defense industries.

ATI already is undergoing a three-phase, $150 million titanium products expansion in Albany, Ore.

Patrick Hassey, ATI chief executive officer, said in a prepared statement that demand for titanium mill products exceeds the titanium industry's current and announced production capacity.

The Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development board earlier this month offered ATI a $3.25 million incentive to lure the plant to the state.

The tax incentive works as a rebate. Allegheny can receive up to a 20 percent maximum rebate in what it pays in state taxes over a 10-year period for a cap of $3.25 million. If the company pays no taxes, no rebate is given.

"We like Utah," said Dan Greenfield, spokesman for ATI. "We hope it works out. It's contingent upon the incentives and a few other things."

Greenfield said the average price of the company's titanium mill products in the first quarter was $31 a pound.

"Titanium is one of the high-end materials," Greenfield said. "This is not a commodity."

Mike Nelson, managing director of recruitment and incentives for GOED, said Allegheny had considered two other plant sites outside of Utah.

Nelson said the jobs will pay 209 percent of Tooele County's median wage, amounting to more than $70 million in wages for Utah citizens over a 10-year period.

"The thing that is really great about having a company like this is they manufacture for aerospace," Nelson said. "This will be a good addition to our aerospace cluster. It will be great jobs for now and into the future."

According to a report by Roskill Information Services, demand for titanium metal is projected to increase steadily through 2009. The report projected that the Western world's passenger airline fleet (over 100 seats) will increase from 10,800 aircraft in 2004 to more than 30,000 in 2020.

Titanium demand also will be boosted, the report said, by the increasing production of military aircraft, particularly the F-22 Raptor jet fighter, which has the highest proportion of titanium of any aircraft, at 39 percent by weight.

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