Nucor Brings Decatur Steel Mill Up to Speed

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). In June of 2002, Nucor Corporation started up the former Trico Steel operation in Decatur, Alabama. The company hopes to produce three million tons of steel in the next two years at the plant and has been making steady improvements to equipment and services. Lockwood Greene (Spartenburg, South Carolina) has been providing the bulk of engineering assistance while the plant has been in this start-up mode.

Long time Nucor contractor Schueck Steel Company (Little Rock, Arkansas), a division of Lexicon, Incorporated is currently installing a new coil handling system at the mill. CHL (Decatur, Alabama) is also onsite providing engineering services and expediting for project. Cache Valley Electrical (Logan, Utah) is onsite providing electrical services.

The company is planning additional modifications including improvements to the mill's pickling line, and they are looking at adding a runout area for steel slabs. The pickling line is where the steel is acid treated. The addition of more boilers and increasing cooling water and wastewater treatment capabilities are a few of the things the company is looking at doing in the long run.

In January of 2002, Nucor announced its intentions to purchase the assets of Trico Steel Company, LLC, a partnership between LTV Corporation (50%), Sumitomo Metals Limited (Japan), and Corus Plc (Britain), for $120 million. Trico Steel, one of the casualties of LTV's bankruptcy, was forced to shutdown operations at its Decatur flat rolled steel mill in March of 2001. Lockwood Greene Engineers constructed the 1.9 million ton/year steel mill, beginning in 1995. The mill boasts 600,000 square feet of building space on 850 acres of land and was built at a cost of $650 million. It started operation in 1997.