Dokka Fasteners Inc. is closing it’s four-year-old Michigan plant due to uncertainty in the wind energy industry, CEO Louis Vasilevski announced.

Norway-based Dokka began U.S. production in late 2011 and will close the plant north of Detroit and will cease operations by the end of 2015. Dokka will continue production in Norway.

The decision to close “was difficult after just committing to build the state-of-the-art facility in 2010,” according to a management statement. “Although the plant start-up went well, the business was subject to uncertainty do to the state of the wind industry in the United States. The landscape for wind energy is volatile based  on a lack of a committed U.S. renewable energy policy, gridlock of government in Washington, and the uncertainty of the production tax credit.”

The closing comes after Dokka/Würth closed its Cardinal Fastener facility in Ohio at the beginning of 2015 and moved production to Michigan.

Dokka’s statement also noted that “inexpensive fossil fuels continue to pose a challenge to the growth of renewable energy.”

The strong U.S. dollar “has made competing against European competitors and low-priced Asian imports increasingly difficult,” Dokka added.

Dokka’s plant in Norway “will continue to support customers demanding high quality fasteners used in extreme applications.”

The company traces its history to the 1875 founding of Kampen.  

In 1985 the company began supplying the wind industry and in 1987 established the Dokka name.  In 1995 Dokka was acquired by Arvid Nilsson Group of Denmark.  

Dokka was acquired by the Würth Industry GmbH in 2008 and in 2011 Würth acquired Cardinal Fasteners of Ohio to establish Dokka and Cardinal as the Würth Hot Forming Group the next year.