Western Railroad Discussion > NEW? Steel Mill in the United States?

Sharing from Railway Age News:

(Is there actually NEW steel Mills being built in the United Stares?)

New nine-mile Iron Range line accommodates new steel mill

The Surface Transportation Board Monday announced a decision permitting the Itasca County (Minn.) Regional Rail Authority (ICRRA) to build a nine-mile rail line from a Class I rail connection at Taconite to the site of a new steel mill to be constructed by Minnesota Steel Industries at Nashwauk. An existing short line will operate the new line under contract. The Class I connection is a line between Grand Rapids and Forbes, Minn., that is owned in part by BNSF Railway and in part by Canadian National.

There was a new "mini mill" built within the last couple years in Columbus, Mississippi...so yes, it does happen.

In the April/June 2008 issue of Great Lakes Seaway Review, it stated that "Essar Group will break ground this summer on the $1.65b mining, processing and steelmaking MN Steel Plant near Nashwauk, a project that will take about five years to become fully operational. Minnesota Steel was sold to India based Essar in 2007. The company said it planned to develop an operation to produce high quality, low cost steel through ore processing, direct reduced iron production and steel making on one site. Estimated annual production from the plant is expected to be 2.5m tons of steel product." Construction inculdes the mine, concentrator, pellet plant and tailings basin, a direct reduced iron plant and slab steel casting facility.

Steel Dynamics opened a new mill in northeast Indiana not far from Ft. Wayne a few years ago. They actually roll railroad rails.

RRmemories asks:
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> ....Is there actually NEW steel Mills being built in
> the United Stares?

The German firm Krupp-Thyssen plans to build, or is building, a plant near Mobile, AL.

For anybody interested this plant will use natural gas from Canada. The Essar Group is based in India.

lowwater

The difference between the Nashwauk project and other "new" mills (like SDI in Indiana and North Star in Delta, OH) is that it will make steel from ore on-site, rather than consuming pig iron or DRI made somewhere else.

I can think of 3 such "new" plants in Indiana alone.

North of Fort Wayne, West of Fort Wayne, and Northwest of Indianapolis

CIOR Wrote:
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> I can think of 3 such "new" plants in Indiana
> alone.
>
> North of Fort Wayne, West of Fort Wayne, and
> Northwest of Indianapolis

With ore-smelting capability on site?

And perhaps most shocking of all, if it happens, is that giant mini-mill operator Nucor plans to build and operate a brand new greenfield BLAST FURNACE PLANT along the Mississippi River on the site where Thyssen-Krupp did not build their huge new steel mill (St. James Parish, LA). A definite reversal of fortune is occurring in the American steel industry. Folks, this could be huge. Hope you like....

Joel Gilmore
Fort Worth, TX

http://www.nucor.com/indexinner.aspx?finpage=newsreleases

The location suggests that they plan on using Brazilian ore, I wonder where the Coke will come from?

Correct. The large numbers of mills that have popped up in the last 10 years are all mini-mills. Steel from scrap using electric arc furnaces.

This Minnesota project and the Thyssen-Krupp mill in Mobile are the first integrated steel mills (ore to steel using blast furnaces) to be built in the US since Bethlehem Steel-Burns Harbor, Indiana in 1965.
wc

Yes, but the Minnesota project will not be using traditional blast furnaces, and the steelmaking side of the new Thyssen-Krupp plant will be more EAFs (mostly for stainless steel) and lots of finishing capability. Slabs will be sent to Mobile from a new blast furnace plant Thyssen will be building in Brazil I think. So, that leaves Nucor's project as the only true new blast furnace project in decades on American soil. Lots of rebuilds, of course, even from the ground up, but no new greenfield blast furnace projects since Burns Harbor. The closest thing to brand new anywhere near the US was Stelco's Lake Erie Steel plant in Nanticoke, Ont., finished I believe in 1979/1980. Nucor's project is definitely something to keep an eye on if you like steel mills and railroads.....

Joel Gilmore