Integrated steelmaker US Steel plans to add merchant pig iron production capacity at its Gary Works steel mill complex in Indiana through a soon-to-be-finalized joint venture.
The new pig iron caster would be installed by a strategic partner at the 7.5mn st/yr flat-rolled Gary Works mill, allowing excess iron production to feed into the new 500,000 short ton/yr merchant pig iron plant, US Steel said.
Production is expected to be online by the first quarter of 2023.
US Steel did not reveal who the potential partner on the pig iron project will be, but chief executive David Burritt said it is in the process of finalizing the agreement with the company.
The pig iron would be used at US Steel's electric arc furnace (EAF) Big River Steel flat-rolled mill in Osceola, Arkansas, and its new 3mn st/yr flat-rolled EAF minimill, which has not yet finalized a location.
The pig iron production will meet approximately half of Big River Steel's annual needs, Burritt said. There are no US producers of merchant pig iron today, with steelmakers reliant on imports from Russia, Ukraine, Brazil and India.
Pig iron is seen as an interim solution to internalize US Steel's raw material strategy, while direct reduced iron (DRI) produced using less carbon-intensive methods is seen as the long-term solution, chief strategy and sustainability officer Rich Fruehauf said.
For its new EAF steel mill, US Steel plans to use the team that led the 1.65mn st/yr expansion at Big River Steel, which brought its overall capacity up to 3.3mn st/yr.
The new pig iron caster is the latest project by US Steel, which said yesterday it would spend $280mn to build a 325,000 st/yr galvanizing line at Big River to be completed by mid-2024.
The galvanizing line will be in addition to a $450mn, 200,000st/yr non-grain oriented (NGO) electrical steel line that US Steel will also build at Big River Steel. The NGO line will target the electric vehicle (EV) industry and is expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2023.
The company made a profit of $2bn in the third quarter compared with a loss of $234mn in the same period of 2020.
