Gerdau Ameristeel Expands Florida Mill

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Minimill giant Gerdau Ameristeel (NYSE:GNA ) (Tampa, Florida) is investing another $78 million in its Baldwin (Jacksonville) minimill, with plans to increase rebar and wire rod production from 640,000 to 720,000 tons a year. The facility will undergo a physical expansion of 16,200 square feet (90ft x 180ft). The mill also recycles over 700,000 tons a year of ferrous and non-ferrous scrap, everything from automobiles to guns, at an on-site scrap-shredding facility owned and operated by Global Shredding Technologies, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OmniSource Corporation. The mill uses the ferrous scrap for its operations, selling the non-ferrous scrap to companies that use that product.

The new $78 million electric arc furnace (EAF) will replace an existing 30-year-old blast furnace. The state-of-the-art 110-ton EAF, which will be built and installed by Danieli Centro Met, is scheduled for a January 2007 installation. The furnace has a 6.5-meter diameter shell with eccentric bottom tapping and features current-conducting arms, a single-point roof lift and swiveling system, and fast-operating hydraulic movements. It will also be equipped with a complete chemical energy package, with sidewall oxygen, gas, and carbon injection systems, as well as lime injection.

The company will install six new rolling mill stands for $4 million. The mill stands will be provided and installed by Industrias Lagun-Artea (Guipúzcoa, Spain), which will also supply the auxiliary equipment, including a robot for rapid installation of the mill stands. The new rolling mill stands will be installed in February of 2007.

Also in the works is a new $16 million fabric filter system for the EAF. The contract for the 16-filter, 1-million acfm baghouse was awarded to Wheelabrator Air Pollution Control, Incorporated (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), a subsidiary recently acquired by Siemens Power Generation. Installation of the baghouse system, including the sixteen filtration units, outlet ductwork, fans, motors, controls, and a stack, will begin in February of 2007 and be complete by September. The unit also features continuous online filter bag cleaning.

In 2003, Gerdau Ameristeel undertook an upgrade to enable rolling of wire rods and rebar at speeds approaching 20,000 per minute. The Jacksonville Economic Development Commission awarded Gerdau Ameristeel $3 million in tax incentives for the present upgrade.

View Plant Profile – 1516481
View Project Report - 05002406

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a Marketing Information Service company that has been doing business for over 23 years. IIR is respected as the leader in providing comprehensive market intelligence pertaining to the industrial processing, heavy manufacturing, and energy-related industries throughout the world.