Big River Steel Commissions First U.S. Steel Making Mill in 5 Years

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Big River Steel LLC (Osceola, Arkansas) has commissioned the melt shop and hot rolling mill at the new steel mill in Osceola, Arkansas. This is the third and fourth area of the mill to be commissioned since the batch anneal plant and temper mill came online earlier this year.

This is the first new steelmaking mill to be built in the U.S. since 2011, when ThyssenKrupp commissioned a $5 billion carbon and stainless steel mill in Calvert, Alabama. ThyssenKrupp sold the carbon steel side of the mill to AM/NS Calvert LLC, a joint venture of ArcelorMittal and NSSMC, in 2014, and the stainless steel side of the mill is now owned by Outokumpu Stainless Incorporated (Schaumburg, Illinois).



Left to right: Dave Stickler, chief executive officer, Big River Steel; Barry Zekelman, chief executive officer and chairman, Zekelman Industries; Michael Mechley, vice president procurement, Zekelman Industries; Mark Bula, chief commercial officer, Big River Steel. Photo courtesy of ODEA Group.

Big River Steel announced Wednesday that the first hot-rolled coil produced by the mill was purchased by Zekelman Industries and will be sent to Atlas Tube, one of Zekelman's structural tube mills in Blytheville, Arkansas. Zekelman Industries purchased the coil for $100,000 with the entire amount jointly contributed by Big River and Zekelman Industries to Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) and Arkansas Northeastern College (ANC).



Left to right: Michael Mechley, vice president procurement, Zekelman Industries; Dave Stickler, chief executive officer, Big River Steel. Photo courtesy of ODEA Group.

Under construction since July 2014, Big River is commissioning some of the world's newest steelmaking technology and will recycle approximately 2 million tons of scrap metal and other metallics to produce 1.6 million tons of finished steel products annually. SMS Siemag AG is the mill equipment technology provider. Eutaw Construction Company (Aberdeen, Mississippi) is the general contractor on the project.

The company's Flex Mill™ is the first in North America to connect an electric arc furnace (EAF) to a Ruhrstahl Heraeus degasser and will be the only EAF mill in the United States to produce hot rolled steel as thick as 1" and as wide as 78". Based on the technology being employed and the design of the facility, Big River will produce steel grades previously only available via integrated mills. When fully operational in early 2017, the mill will produce a range of material dimensions and strength levels never before produced in an EAF mill.

Big River Steel expects the mill to be fully operational during the first quarter of 2017.

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