Daniel W. Fisher
President at Ball
Thanks, John. I would be remiss if I didn't properly and publicly thank John Hayes for his 22 years of service to Ball Corporation and for his personal support and mentorship of me as a leader at Ball. Some of you may have listened to nearly all of the 70 earnings and deal-related investor calls John has participated on during his tenure. As you know, John dedicated his time to ensuring the company remain committed to its long-standing culture: EVA and ownership mindset in high ethics while also being innovative, inclusive, sustainability-driven and positioning our business for global growth, while also supporting our communities where we live and operate and generating great returns for fellow shareholders. We, as owners and students of Ball, and our industries are better off because of his leadership and dedication. We will forever be indebted to you, John. The performance and stock price development under your leadership speak for themselves. And while it is indeed a team sport here at Ball, John was the team captain for the past decade. John, thank you for setting a high bar for us. I can assure you that speaking on behalf of all Ball employees, we are focused on replicating and/or exceeding the company's performance under your leadership. Another decade with nearly 500% return sounds pretty good. Our team is up to the task. I am humbled and honored to assume the role of CEO and carry on the Ball culture, Drive for 10 vision, EVA discipline and ownership mindset. And as the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." We know who we are, we know where we're going and we know what is important. Now on to reviewing our performance and outlook. We continue to strive to keep our teams safe and educated about vaccinations and boosters and focused on their mental health. We're not immune to the external forces impacting the global operating environment. However, our teams are doing a heck of a job navigating those external forces and filling in for one another when needed.
We extend our well wishes to our employees, customers, suppliers, stakeholders and everyone listening today. 2021 was another year where our Ball team and businesses faced challenges and, through it all, rose to the occasion to care for one another and deliver value to our stakeholders. In 2021, our business highlights included our global beverage business completing the start-up of four new multiline facilities: three in North America, one in South America and the expansion of existing facilities across all regions. The company also announced five additional greenfield facilities: two in North America and three in EMEA, which will come online in 2022 and beyond; our global aluminum aerosol team introducing new reclosable aluminum bottles for personal care and other categories. Our aluminum cups team signed contracts with the world's largest retailer and continue to have our cup featured at key sporting events and venues; our aerospace team expanding its infrastructure, opening its state-of-the-art Payload Development Facility in Broomfield, Colorado, expanding our Aerospace Manufacturing Center in Westminster, Colorado; as well as successfully launching the Ball-built OLI land imaging instrument on NASA's Landsat nine satellite, the IXPE astrophysics mission spacecraft and the optics and mirror systems aboard the James Webb Space Telescope; our North America aluminum packaging business continuing progress toward Aluminium Stewardship Initiative Certification following South America's ASI Certification in the fourth quarter of 2021 and EMEA's ASI Certification in 2020. The company also announced ambitious 2030 sustainability goals, including inclusion and diversity goals, recycling goals and our aspiration to achieve net 0 before 2050. Our business has hired over 2,600 people in 2021 to support our long-term growth and attrition largely due to retirements; and returning approximately $950 million to shareholders after investing $1.7 billion in capital expenditures to generate additional profitable growth for decades to come.
In 2021, our global packaging businesses absorbed $120 million of nonaluminum inflationary headwinds and additional cost to start up four new facilities. Also, in North America, EMEA and South America, operational efficiencies, price/cost squeeze in advance of contractual cost recovery and geopolitical volatility, respectively, resulted in loss projection and money was left on the table in 2021. As we embark on 2022, contractual price escalators based on PPI and other indices, which phase in throughout the year, normal cost pass-throughs and our additional commercial cost recovery program benefits will generate significant incremental value and support higher levels of growth capital in 2022, which Scott will discuss later. Demand for aluminum beverage cans continues to outstrip supply around the world. We shipped 112.5 billion cans in 2021. 50% were specialty cans, and we exited 2021 with 12 billion units of new installed capacity. We also have plans in place to exit 2022 with another 12 billion units of new installed capacity. Capacity available to sell-through in 2023 and beyond, announced projects and line additions in existing facilities all underscore our late 2020 Investor Day commentary, and additional long-term EVA-generating contracts for committed volume are now in place to domestically supply our customers in the regions where we operate in 2022 and beyond. In addition to global beverage, our aerospace, aluminum aerosol and cups teams continue to win new work and position and train talent to support multiyear growth and offset attrition largely due to retirements. To all the teams listening, thank you for finishing the year strong and leaning into another year of growth. We also appreciate your efforts to operationalize and commercialize sustainability, drive our D&I goals and live the Ball culture. As we discussed throughout 2021, growth isn't always linear. We continue to rely on our supply chain for raw material inputs and look forward to additional investments being announced in 2022 to enable more growth for aluminum packaging.
Given our established global scale, significant increase in installed capacity exiting 2021, our capable asset base and innovative product portfolio, we are on course to achieve double-digit global volume growth and global specialty mix in excess of 50% for full year 2022 and sold-out market conditions continuing beyond 2022. Now a few brief comments on each region. In North America beverage, fourth quarter shipped volumes were up 5% versus 2020 fourth quarter -- excuse me, fourth quarter 2019 volumes were up 16%. During the fourth quarter, earnings were up nearly 17% as volume growth, specialty mix and the operational benefit of better finished good inventory levels more than offset higher costs and operational efficiencies in legacy plants brought about by dunnage tightness and indirect supply chain disruptions. Glendale and Pittston exited 2021 with four can manufacturing lines installed, and each have room for additional lines. Our Bowling Green ends manufacturing plant started up successfully early in the quarter and continues to operate after incurring some roof damage during the December Southeastern U.S. tornado outbreak. We are thankful our Bowling Green team and their families are safe. The plant's team's leadership, safety actions and post-event resiliency were outstanding. The business continues work to build adequate inventory levels is ongoing. These actions, formulaic contractual price increases, higher levels of domestically produced cans and cost recovery will further position the plants and our business for strong double-digit growth in 2022. Ball's previously announced multiline greenfield plants in Nevada and North Carolina are supported by long-duration contracts with strategic global customers and are on track to come online in late 2022 and early 2024, respectively. In EMEA, shipment volume for the fourth quarter was up 6% versus 2020 on tougher comps given prior year's 20% volume increases due to COVID reopening timing and were also up due to customers adding new can-filling investments.
Across Ball's EMEA business, demand trends and positive momentum continues. Near double-digit growth in 2022 will be driven by new and existing categories utilizing cans and available cans from our 2021 line additions and speed-ups across the region. In 2023 and beyond, our new greenfield plants in the U.K., Russia and Czech Republic, which are supported by long-duration contracts for committed volumes with global and regional key partners, will extend our ability to serve growing customers and categories. Our EMEA team is executing very well and managing complex country-by-country supply chain issues. Key inputs are in tight supply, and though we have contracts and mechanisms to control cost, we're keeping a watchful eye on driver availability and pandemic-related labor shortages impacting timely stocking of store shelves. In South America, fourth quarter volumes were up 3% versus 2020 and up 16% versus 2019. 2020 volumes were up 12% versus fourth quarter 2019 due to timing effects related to COVID rebound and warmer temperatures during the seasonal summer fourth quarter. Cooler-than-normal seasonal temperatures and excessive rain in Brazil contributed to softer-than-anticipated volumes during the fourth quarter of 2021. We continue to see more earnings upside in South America in 2022 and beyond. The Frutal, Brazil plant start-up, its second line during the first quarter of 2022, additional investments throughout the region continue to be on schedule. In summary, our global beverage team is preparing ourselves and our supply chains for long-term durable growth while managing notable volatility. Our customers are continuing to lean on the can as their package of choice as brand proliferation and the blurring of the category lines accelerates. We are operating safely, controlling the things we can control, recovering costs, delivering high-quality cans to our customers from even more new facilities supported by equitable contracts and closely monitoring global supply chains. Our aluminum aerosol team did a good job supplying growth across North America.
The team continues to manage varying degrees of consumer demand volatility in Brazil and India. The business continues to make progress on the rollout of refillable, reclosable aluminum personal care and bottle packaging across multiple categories. To support the new cups contracts I mentioned earlier, we have increased marketing investments and are adding another cup manufacturing line in our Rome, Georgia cups plant. Following this investment, both lines will be capable of making multiple cup sizes. We anticipate profit starting in late 2022. And turning to aerospace, the team continued to win contracts and maintain record backlog. Segment operating earnings were up 38% in the fourth quarter versus 2020, supported by improved program execution. Carrying in the momentum from the fourth quarter, the business continues to be positioned for sales and earnings growth in 2022 and margin improvement in 2022 given the contract mix. Across all our operations, we are increasing year-over-year capital and training investments to deliver on strong contracted demand and position our plant operations for success. We appreciate all of the amazing work being done across the organization.
And with that, I'll turn it over to Scott.
