Steel Mills

North Star BlueScope Celebrates Expansion Project During Board Visit

Written by Laura Miller

May 13, 2022

North Star BlueScope officially celebrated its expansion project and the commissioning of its new EAF meltshop this week in Delta, Ohio.

northstar bluescope

The project, which will add 850,000 metric tons (roughly 937,000 short tons) of annual hot rolled sheet capacity once complete, was originally announced in August 2019. It was delayed slightly when, in April 2020, BlueScope said it would reschedule construction and installation for six months in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The new EAF – the minimill’s third – was officially commissioned during the second half of 2021 (during the first half of Australian parent company’s BlueScope Steel Ltd.’s 2022 fiscal year which ends June 30). This week’s celebration was on the occasion of a visit by BlueScope‘s board of directors, the first visit to the mill since the Covid outbreak.

Final construction and commissioning of a second caster is still progressing, a BlueScope official told SMU.

Production of the first coil is expected next month, with an 18-month ramp up to the full run rate after that.

When announcing the expansion project in 2019, BlueScope managing director and CEO Mark Vassella said that the project has future potential growth, through possible debottlenecking, to add a further 500,000 metric tons per year of steelmaking capacity.

By Laura Miller, Laura@SteelMarketUpdate.com

 

Laura Miller

Laura Miller is a reporter and editor for Steel Market Update. She has held a variety of positions within the steel industry since 2007, including reporting and editing for Steel Business Briefing/Platts, the Association for Iron and Steel Technology, and Kallanish Commodities, as well as marketing for what was then known as ThyssenKrupp Steel USA (now AM/NS Calvert). After a five-year hiatus working across other industries, she returned to steel in 2021 and has covered the flat rolled, tubular, and trade areas of the industry. She is a member of the Association of Women in the Metal Industries and a past-president of the AWMI Pittsburgh Chapter. She holds a BA in Latin American Studies from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She can be reached at laura@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7869.

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