Three mini-mills continue to be without sufficient power to run the melt segment of their mill operations. The three mills are: Nucor Decatur, Severstal Columbus and to a lesser degree Nucor Tuscaloosa. All three mini-mills, which means they make steel through the use of an electric arc furnace, have been unable to melt new steel due to power outages associated with last weeks storms in the southern USA. Steel Market Update has been in communication with our sources and we have an update on the situation at each mill.

First, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has completed 95% of the customer electrical power connections which were interrupted from last week’s storms in the South. The TVA reported this morning (May 3) there are seven connection points remaining to be repaired – and they will be the most difficult.

The TVA has begun to restore power to the three impacted mini-mills located in Alabama and Mississippi: Nucor Decatur, Nucor Tuscaloosa and Severstal Columbus.

Severstal Columbus

Severstal NA has been communicating with Steel Market Update and has advised us their EAF (electric arc furnace) has not been in operation since last Wednesday when storms knocked down transmission lines in the area. The mill advised SMU earlier this week, “The Galvanizing line came up on Saturday. The Temper mill also ran over the weekend.” Earlier today the mill told us the batch annealing furnaces were running and the pickle tandem mill was to begin running again today. Their spokesperson did not have a projected date by which the EAF would be back in operation.

Nucor Decatur

Our Nucor Decatur sources advised us the mill has been getting some “limited” power back to the facility and the mill is hopeful they will be able to operate their downstream operations (cold mill, galvanizing facilities, etc.). However, it is expected it could be as long as two to three weeks before the power will be restored to the point where the Electric Arc Furnace (EAF), caster and hot mill would be fully functioning.

In speaking to Nucor customers they are in the process of being advised if their substrate is behind the lines (already melted and in hot rolled or FHCR form at this time) and able to be processed at the Decatur facility. If the substrate has been produced then the orders will be able to be completed at Decatur.

For those customers whose orders have not been melted, our sources are telling SMU the majority of the orders would move over to the Nucor Berkeley facility for production. A smaller segment of the open orders which cannot be handled by Decatur would be moved to Crawfordsville, IN or Blytheville, AR plants should the product and lead time fit their operations better than Berkeley.

Nucor Tuscaloosa

SMU sources are advising us the Tuscaloosa plate mill has been running their downstream operations (rolling and temper passing existing inventory) as well as shipping since this past Friday. So far this week they have not been able to run their EAF. Our sources are advising us there are tests being conducted and the mill should be back melting and casting steel later this week. The Tuscaloosa facility is working with their customers to re-promise delivery dates if they were negatively impacted due to the storm issues.

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