Southern U.S. Attracting Steel Manufacturers in Droves

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). A slew of recent project announcements has highlighted the southern U.S. as the site of choice for the next wave of steel mill construction in the U.S. Steel demand from automotive, and oil & gas industries are driving this trend. Nucor, Ipsco, Berg Steel, and Steel Dynamics are all in the preliminary developmental stages to construct new grassroot mills in the southern U.S. Start-up steel firm, SeverCorr, LLC is well underway with construction of a new $800 million hot rolled sheet mill in Mississippi, which is targeting automotive end users. SeverCorr is contemplating an expansion, which would double capacity of the new mill scheduled to begin operation by the end of 2007.

The end users for the next wave of mills vary from special quality steel bar users being supplied by potential new mills from Nucor and Steel Dynamics, to pipe and tubular products end users being supplied by potential new plants from Berg Steel Pipe (Panama City, Florida) and Ipsco, Incorporated (Lisle, Illinois). The recent 400,000-barrel per day outage of BP’s Alaskan slope oil field highlights the need for large diameter pipe manufacturing capacity, which few North American mills can make. It may take up to six months or more to source the 20 miles of replacement pipe for the BP job. In addition, the record number of new oil & gas pipeline projects support the need for oil and gas pipe manufacturing capacity in North America. Both Berg Steel Pipe and Ipsco are looking at multiple sites in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas for potential new mill locations.

Nucor, Incorporated (Charlotte, North Carolina) and Steel Dynamics, Incorporated (Fort Wayne, Indiana) are both considering new mills to manufacture special bar quality (SBQ) steel.

Atlas Tube, Incorporated (Plymouth, Michigan) began construction earlier this year on a new $54 million structural tube mill in Blytheville, Arkansas.

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