Steel Mills

JSW Steel Plans $500 Million Investment in Acero Junction
Written by Sandy Williams
June 24, 2018
JSW Steel plans to pump $500 million into its newly acquired Acero Junction steel mill in a two-phase investment. The first $250 million includes the cost of acquisition, the revamp and restart of the electric arc furnace and slab caster, and modernization of the hot strip mill.
The second phase will be dependent “upon the economic viability and prevailing market conditions” and includes the possibility of adding another EAF and additional manufacturing equipment at the hot strip mill. Upon completion the Ohio facility would be a fully integrated unit with 3 million tons of annual capacity.
Parth Jindal, Director, JSW Steel (USA) Inc., said in a statement: “JSW is pleased to share its intention for additional investments in the U.S. market. It is our fundamental belief that due to the rich availability of scrap metal and abundance of natural gas, making steel through the EAF route is highly competitive in the USA from a global standpoint. Over the past few months, we have announced the backward integration of our plate and pipe mill in Baytown, Texas. Through our acquisition of Acero Junction, we further our product range as we will be able to supply American Melted and Manufactured Hot Rolled coils. It is our intention to further augment our capacity in Acero Junction over the next few years and, subject to necessary approvals, to take the combined capacity of JSW USA to 4 MTPA (3 MTPA at Acero and 1 MTPA at Baytown), which will be 100% American Melted and Manufactured.”
The Acero Junction steel manufacturing facility, located on the bank of the Ohio River, uses an electric arc furnace to produce hot rolled coils. It includes a 1.5 MTPA electric arc furnace, a 2.80 MTPA slab caster, and a 3.0 MTPA hot strip mill. The hot strip mill is capable of producing a wide range of steel grades in widths up to 2,000 mm wide and in thicknesses from 1.5mm – 10 mm.

Sandy Williams
Read more from Sandy WilliamsLatest in Steel Mills

USW seeks clarity on plans for Granite City Works
The United Steelworkers union has asked U.S. Steel to elaborate on its Granite City Works plans following reports that the steelmaker is ending processing at the facility.

Nucor maintains plate prices, opens October order book
Nucor aims to keep plate prices flat for a seventh straight month with the opening of its October order book.

ArcelorMittal Mexico to import from sister mills as it works to resume DRI production
ArcelorMittal has partially restarted operations at its direct reduction plant in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan. An explosion on Aug. 18 rocked the massive steelworks on Mexico’s Pacific coast, impacting production of direct-reduced iron (DRI).

Fall maintenance outages are coming in hot
Labor Day has passed, the sun is starting to set a little earlier each day, and cooler weather has begun to find its way down to many of us across North America. And you know what that means for the steel industry… Fall maintenance outages!

AISI: Domestic steel production ticks up
US raw steel production ticked up in the week ending on Sept. 6 after a decrease the week before, according to the most recent data from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI).