Meltio Cuts Titanium Part Costs 42%, Lead Time to 58 Hours for ExxonMobil

Meltio announced the successful deployment of its wire-laser metal deposition technology at ExxonMobil's Baton Rouge refinery in Louisiana, producing titanium anti-wicking devices for thermocouple wiring. Using the Meltio M600 system and Ti-64 wire, engineers achieved a 42% reduction in unit manufacturing costs and compressed lead times from four to six weeks down to 58.8 hours. A custom fixture enabled simultaneous multi-part production inside an inert environment, addressing oxidation and thermal management challenges inherent to titanium DED.

The case is a concrete demonstration of metal DED's value proposition for the energy sector, where spare parts often suffer from long lead times and high machining costs — especially for titanium. Unlike powder-based processes, wire-laser DED avoids powder handling and offers near-net-shape capability with high deposition rates, making it economically compelling for low-to-medium volume parts. This application fits a recurring pattern: a traditionally machined component redesigned for AM to unlock geometry and cost advantages. Competitors such as AML3D, Lincoln Electric, and WAAM specialists offer similar capabilities, but Meltio's closed-chamber wire-laser approach provides a distinct processing envelope for reactive materials like titanium. The 42% cost improvement and 90% lead time compression are substantial enough to justify qualification efforts for other refinery components.

For Meltio, the ExxonMobil reference is its most prominent energy application to date and should serve as a template for expanding into adjacent oil and gas accounts. The challenge now is converting this single-part success into a portfolio of qualified components across refinery instrumentation and piping, where standardization and repeatability are prerequisites for broad adoption. Buyers evaluating DED for titanium should benchmark Meltio's 58-hour production lead time against traditional supply chains — a threshold that changes the economics of emergency spares and inventory management.