Steel Mills

JSW Steel Plans $500 Million Investment in Acero Junction

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.