ArcelorMittal Mines and Infrastructure Canada have reached tentative agreement with the United Steelworkers on a new labor contract following government-mediated negotiations. If ratified, the four-year collective labor agreement will cover 2,500 members in five union locals working at ArcelorMittal mining operations in northern Quebec. Workers launched a strike on May 10 after voting to reject a […]
Canadian steel producer Stelco is getting into the electric vehicle battery recycling business. The company announced it will enter into a joint venture with Primobious to build a facility in North America that will recover and recycle materials from EV batteries. Primobious is a 50-50 joint venture of Neometals Ltd and SMS Group, formed to […]
ArcelorMittal Mexico plans to start up its new hot strip mill in Lázaro Cárdenas in Mexico’s Michoacán state in the fourth quarter of this year, a company spokeswoman said. The hot strip mill cost $1 billion and is expected to have annual capacity of 2.75 million tons per year (tpy), according to an ArcelorMittal press […]
Norfolk Iron & Metal Co., a full-line steel service center headquartered in Norfolk, Neb., announced the creation of NIM Group which will be the parent identity for its brands: Norfolk Iron and Metal, Metalwest and Cd’A Metals In December 2018, Norfolk Iron acquired Metalwest, a processor and distributor of carbon and nonferrous flat-rolled metal products […]
Schnitzer Steel said it expects ferrous volumes to be better than expected in its fiscal third quarter which ends this month. The company previously reported guidance of 977,000 long tons for Q3. According to an SEC filing on June 1, a 25% increase over that amount is now anticipated. Finished steel sales volumes for the […]
An explosion over the weekend at Evraz North America’s steel mill in Pueblo, Colo., injured eight people, three of them critically, a union official told Steel Market Update. The resulting damage will disrupt production at the mill given that its electric arc furnace (EAF) feeds three downstream operations, some of which do not have an […]
Cleveland-Cliffs is ramping up the No. 5 blast furnace at its steel mill in Cleveland, Ohio, after a minor incident earlier in the week, according to market participants. A blowout on a tuyere resulted in limited damage, including melted wiring, and led to the furnace being down for several days, a source familiar with the […]
The U.S. steel industry stands to benefit in a big way should the government put a price on carbon emissions, according to a study by CRU, Steel Market Update’s parent company. CRU examined the potential impact of a standard fee on carbon emissions and an equivalent border carbon adjustment (BCA) and found that such policies could […]
Friedman Industries, a manufacturer and processor of steel products, will add a new facility on the Steel Dynamics Sinton, Texas, flat roll steel mill campus. Friedman plans to build a 70,000-square-foot building on 25 acres leased from SDI under a 99-year agreement. Red Bud Industries has been selected to install stretcher leveler cut-to-length lines capable […]
U.S. Steel has completed a 25-day maintenance outage on the No. 1 blast furnace at its Mon Valley Works in western Pennsylvania, a company spokeswoman said. The outage was part of the steelmaker’s normal maintenance program. The downtime was used to apply shotcrete–a sprayed concrete–and other standard upkeep, sources have said. The Pittsburgh-based steelmaker said on its first-quarter earnings […]
Nucor CEO and President Leon Topalian will serve as the next chairman of the American Iron and Steel Institute, announced the AISI Board of Directors on Tuesday. Topalian will serve a two-year term at the head of the industry trade group, taking over the role from John Brett, CEO of ArcelorMittal North America. “Leon Topalian […]
Privately held Canadian steelmaker Algoma Steel has agreed to be taken over and taken public in a deal valued at as much as $1.7 billion, the company said. Proceeds from the initial public offering (IPO) might result in the Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario-based company becoming the latest producer to switch from integrated to electric arc […]
Steel Dynamics CEO and President Mark Millett will add chairman of the board to his executive duties. Millett, who co-founded Steel Dynamics in 1993 with Keith Busse and Richard Teets, will replace Busse as chairman, effective immediately as part of a planned leadership transition. Busse will continue to serve as a director on the board. […]
Much attention has been paid to how much new electric-arc furnace (EAF) flat-rolled steel capacity is being added to the North American market. Less has been written about how many tons of integrated steelmaking capacity have been taken out. An analysis by Steel Market Update indicates that the latter figure is perhaps equally significant. It […]
Much attention has been paid to how much new electric-arc furnace (EAF) flat-rolled steel capacity is being added to the North American market. Less has been written about how many tons of integrated steelmaking capacity have been taken out. An analysis by Steel Market Update indicates that the latter figure is perhaps equally significant. It […]
Indian steelmaker JSW Steel Ltd. suffered losses of nearly $31 million at its U.S. operations in its fiscal fourth quarter as its mills worked to return to production following pandemic-related shutdowns. JSW Steel USA idled its Mingo Junction, Ohio, and Baytown, Texas, mills in 2020 in response to poor demand resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak. The […]
U.S. Steel’s mill in Košice, Slovakia, must swap out its blast furnaces for electric-arc furnaces (EAFs) to survive in a decarbonizing world, a government official said. The problem: Doing so doesn’t come cheap. The change would cost approximately €1.5 billion ($1.8 billion), Slovakian Finance Minister Igor Matovič said per reports in local media. “If we want […]
Ternium has completed its new hot strip mill in Pesqueria, Mexico, ahead of schedule. The Latin American steelmaker ran its first two hot rolled coils in mid-May at the new mill near Monterrey, more than two weeks ahead of its originally planned June start-up. “This is a very important milestone; it is the result of […]
California Steel Industries (CSI) has opened its flat rolled orderbook for August, and the West Coast slab converter has also increased prices by triple-digit margins, according to market participants. “The purpose of this letter is to inform you that CSI’s August Flat Rolled Order Book is now open,” the company said in emails to customers on Thursday, May […]
Paragon Steel has acquired Cleveland-based Buckeye Metals Industries, Inc., a growing distributor of carbon steel with an extensive network of suppliers and processing partners. “Buckeye Metals has been a great industry partner of ours for many years,” said Bruce Whitman, general manager of Paragon Steel. “The combined team created by the acquisition is a win-win […]
David Samrick, former CEO and chairman of Mill Steel Co., died peacefully May 14 surrounded by his family. Samrick’s career in the family service center business began in 1965 at age 19. With his aptitude for leadership and keen business insight, he was promoted to president in 1976, then CEO and chairman in 1985. Alongside his […]
California Steel Industries (CS) will increase its zinc coating extras effective July 1. “Due to changing zinc costs, our galvanized coating extras have been revised,” the company said in a letter to customers on Friday, May 14. The West Coast slab re-roller last increased coating extras in early December. Zinc prices have since risen. Zinc […]
Klöckner & Company SE is under the new leadership of Guido Kerkhoff, effective May 13, 2021. Kerkhoff has been responsible for Europe business operations as Deputy Chairman of the Management Board since the beginning of September 2020. In the planned transition, he succeeds Gisbert Rühl, a member of the Management Board since 2006 and CEO […]
Commercial Metals was granted approval for an operating air permit that clears the way for construction of its micro mill in Mesa, Ariz. “Receiving the air permit is an important milestone in our latest micro mill project, which we have named Arizona 2,” said Tracy Porter, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. “With the […]
Lourenco Goncalves, chairman, president and CEO of Cleveland-Cliffs, will be honored as Steelmaker of the Year by the Association for Iron and Steel Technology at this year’s AISTech 2021 conference. The award recognizes Goncalves for his leadership in the iron and steel industry. Said AIST in a press release: “Goncalves is awarded Steelmaker of the […]
NLMK USA is taking an unplanned seven- to 10-day outage on the hot-strip mill at its facility in Farrell, Pa., a company executive said. The repairs are necessary because a motor failed on the reversing roughing mill, NLMK USA Executive Vice President James Banker told Steel Market Update on Tuesday, May 11. The company will […]
United Steelworkers at ArcelorMittal Mines and Infrastructure Canada went on strike Monday night after rejecting a May 7 offer by the company. The strike by 2,500 employees could have a “serious economic impact on the economy of the Côte-Nord and Quebec,” said Quebec Labor Minister Jean Boulet. ArcelorMittal and the USW executives of the five […]
U.S. Steel’s surprise decision to pull the plug on the $1.5-billion upgrade at its Mon Valley Works pleased environmental advocates but came as a serious blow to the economic environment in the Pittsburgh area. Government officials, unions and citizen groups cried foul over what they see as the loss of thousands of jobs from a […]
Record-high steel prices result not from Section 232 tariffs or industry consolidation but instead from uniquely strong supply-demand fundamentals, Cleveland-Cliffs’ top executive said. And an ambitious infrastructure package would go a long way toward keeping those fundamentals, and the resulting investment in the domestic steel industry, stronger for longer, he suggested. “We in this country […]
Steel Market Update has revised its blast furnace status chart to reflect that two furnaces at Cleveland-Cliffs’ Indiana Harbor steelmaking complex in East Chicago, Ind., have been razed. The No. 5 and No. 6 blast furnaces have not been operated since 2010, were decommissioned in 2015 and have since been demolished, a spokeswoman for the […]