Steel Mills
EAFs for USS?
Written by Sandy Williams
March 27, 2014
US Steel is considering replacing additional blast furnaces with electric arc furnaces (EAF) according to President and CEO Mario Longhi.
In January, US Steel announced it was seeking permits to replace the blast furnace at Fairfield, Ala., with an EAF, a process that would take approximately three years from application to completion. The EAF would have an annual steel production capability of 1.1 million net tons as compared to 2.1 million tons for the current blast furnace but would increase flexibility and efficiency said Longhi.
“We are moving ahead with the first one,” said Longhi in remarks to Reuters on Tuesday. “And there is a lot of analysis going on, given the fact that we have plenty of blast furnaces, to see where, if, when the next one could be replaced by another electric arc furnace.”
Longhi said the decision to replace a furnace would depend on the age of the blast furnace and when it would be due for a “massive reline” that can cost $100 million or more.
Natural gas-fired electric arc furnaces can process steel scrap instead of iron ore, which can reduce transportation costs for raw materials and the risks of coal and iron ore price fluctuation.
In April of 2013, US Steel announced it was exploring the possibility of a joint venture with Republic Steel to construct a direct reduced iron (DRI) facility. Although those plans are currently on hold according to Republic Steel spokesperson Mark Huemme, if it were to proceed, the project could potentially provide feed stock for Republic’s new electric arc furnace as well as the Fairfield facility.
US Steel has concluded that the iron ore at its Minnesota ore operations is suitable for production of DRI quality pellets.
“We’ve concluded the testing phase of our work at Minntac and have determined that with the appropriate investment in process and facility improvements we can produce DRI quality pellets and we’ve advanced to the engineering phase in order to define a specific timeline and investment requires to commence production of DRI quality pellets,” said Longhi in the Q3 earnings call.
Currently, US Steel’s Minntac and Keetac taconite mines together provide 22 million net tons of iron ore pellets per year.
Sandy Williams
Read more from Sandy WilliamsLatest in Steel Mills
Nucor names Batterbee, Bledsoe to HR roles
Nucor Corp. has promoted Thomas J. Batterbee to the position EVP of human resources and talent and appointed Elizabeth Bledsoe to the newly created position of president of human resources and talent.
Millett sees tariffs, CORE case benefiting SDI
Steel Dynamics' top exec thinks Trump’s tariff policies, as well as the results from the recent CORE case, will prove advantageous to the Fort Wayne, Ind.-based steelmaker and aluminum company.
USW digs in on opposition to USS-Nippon deal
“We remain deeply concerned about the national and economic security implications of the subject transaction,” the union stated in the letter dated April 21.
SDI’s Q1 earnings slump on-year, but up sequentially
SDI earnings slip in first quarter year over year, but are up sequentially.
POSCO inks MoU with Hyundai on Louisiana EAF mill
POSCO has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Hyundai Motor Group that includes an equity investment in Hyundai’s previously announced EAF mill set to be built in Louisiana.