Steel Mills

Nucor: Brandenburg on Track, First Plate at Year’s End

Written by David Schollaert

October 20, 2022

Nucor Corp.’s new $1.35 billion plate mill in Brandenburg, Ky., remains on track to start up late in the fourth quarter of this year, with “meaningful production” to occur in the first quarter of 2023, Leon Topalian, Nucor’s chair, president, and CEO said on an earnings conference call with analysts on Thursday, Oct. 20.

Nucor

The construction and startup of the Brandenburg plate mill — slated to have an annual capacity of 1.2 million tons — continue to progress on budget and on schedule, the executive said.

The electric-arc and ladle metallurgical furnaces have already been commissioned, and Nucor anticipates commissioning the vacuum tank degasser and caster in the next several weeks.

During the call, Topalian highlighted Nucor’s pursuit of LEED v4 for Building and Design certification for its new plate mill, noting that with categories of sustainable performance, climate change, and third-party transparency and reporting requirements, the certification is even more rigorous than previous LEED rating systems.

“In a continued trend of environmental leadership as a company, Nucor Steel Brandenburg is the first steel mill in the world to pursue certification under LEED v4, which is more stringent than previous rating systems,” said Topalian. “The new plate mill will play a key role in supplying sustainable steel to build our clean energy infrastructure.”

He lauded the plate mill’s capability, being one of very few mills worldwide and the only one in the western hemisphere capable of supplying “critical steel components required to build offshore wind farms.”

By David Schollaert, David@SteelMarketUpdate.com

David Schollaert

David Schollaert is a senior analyst for Steel Market Update. David joined SMU after more than a decade in the metals and mining industry in a myriad of different roles. Much of his early experience and expertise were within the coverage and analysis of steel-making raw materials and served previously as senior editor of the CRU Prices Service. Most recently, however, before his return to market analysis, David held roles as a metals buyer and an operations manager for raw material suppliers. Based in CRU’s Pittsburgh office, David can be reached at david@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-720-1008.

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