Gulf Coast Spinning Co. LLC (GCS), a new venture undertaken by the management group of Lacassine, La.-based Zagis USA LLC, will invest $130 million to build a cotton spinning facility in Bunkie, La. The investment will result in the creation of an estimated 290 jobs.
The facility is the second of two that Zagis USA announced in 2008 it would build in Louisiana. The first, which represented a $20 million investment, opened in Lacassine in late 2009. Together, the two mills are expected to generate 386 direct and 1,040 indirect jobs.
GCS expects to begin construction in mid-2014 on the 600,000-square-foot Bunkie facility comprising two operations — a ring-spinning operation equipped with 43,200 Zinser spindles that will be able to spin up to 450,000 pounds per week of premium cotton and cotton/synthetic carded and combed yarns for knit and woven apparel, and specialty denim yarns; and an open-end operation equipped with 17,280 rotors supplied by five blending lines and 52 cards, with a weekly capacity of up to 2.5 million pounds of cotton/synthetic and synthetic yarns.
The facility will be four times larger than Zagis USA’s Lacassine mill, which produces 100-percent cotton open-end yarns.
GCS plans to export most of its yarn, similarly to the Lacassine mill, which exports 85 percent of its spun yarn. Once the Bunkie mill is commissioned, the two mills together are expected to utilize some 15 to 20 percent of Louisiana’s total cotton crop.
January/February 2014
