Steel Mills

Big River Steel Moves Forward Over Nucor Objections

March 31, 2014

The following article was written by contributing writer David Phelps. Mr. Phelps is recently retired from his duties as the Director of the American Institute for International Steel. In that capacity he had occasion to interact with the domestic steel mills. The following article contains the viewpoint of Mr. Phelps regarding Big River Steel and Nucor:

Congratulations are due to entrepreneur steelman John Correnti as his Big River Steel moves another step toward construction. It is beyond debate that the economy needs the jobs and competition that Big River will bring.

Even a quick look at the record underscores that Mr. Correnti is the true successor to his mentor, Ken Iverson. This is not the first steel mill that John will have built; in addition to the mills he was involved in building for Nucor, there is Stevercorp, which is a cutting edge mill built to bring minimill electric arc furnaces into the exposed auto body sheet products market. He also “refurbished” bankrupt Birmingham Steel and sold it to, ironically, Nucor.

Like Iverson, John is not afraid of competition, not domestic nor imports and has said so loudly on many occasions. When he announced his Big River Steel project in January 2013 though, Nucor — the company he ran as CEO years ago — complained. Put simply, Nucor did not want the competition and said so, loudly and often – the market in that part of the country is oversupplied, they whined. Nucor opposed Correnti’s proposal with all of its political power, first with the governor’s office and most importantly with Arkansas legislature. Nucor lost.

The next step by Nucor surprised even those used to the “new” Nucor we-hate- competition policies. Nucor filed against Big River’s approval by the Arkansas EPA!!! The irony of this is thick. Nucor, often the target of environmentalists – unfairly by any reasonable standard – now allies itself with environmental wackos to kill competition before it gets started. Again, as reported this week, Nucor lost.

To continue this thread, thick with irony, it has been reported that the federal EPA has come after Nucor for its new facility in Louisiana. An old football axiom comes to mind, “Live by the dog, die by the dog.” I continue to believe that the EPA is out of control and so hope that Nucor prevails in this matter. The irony is noteworthy though.

Finally, just to show how far Nucor has fallen from the ideals of its founder, lets look at the natural gas and scrap issue. Nucor correctly has complained about countries prohibiting scrap exports because such actions distort the international market and of course cause prices for scrap to be higher in the US. Nucor favors open markets and free trade apparently for scrap. Good. However, Nucor is also involved in opposing the development of export terminals for natural gas. Their reasoning? Exports would increase the domestic market price for gas in the US. In other words, the same argument that foreign countries use for limiting exports of scrap. Where is Iverson when we need him?

I must divulge that I have been a buyer/seller and holder of Nucor stock. Nucor is a great steel company thanks to the men and women whose sweat creates the profits. However, one has to wonder what has happened to the principled positions of Nucor management on competition that Nucor was known for under Iverson/Correnti?