SDI to add four new steel coating lines

Steel Dynamics (SDI) is planning to build two additional steel coating lines to support its new Texas flat-rolled mill set to start up this year, with another two coating lines to be built in the Midwest.

The electric arc furnace (EAF) minimill steelmaker will invest $225mn in the two new lines at the Sinton mill, which will use material from the 3mn short ton (st)/yr flat-rolled mill that is expected to start up in late summer.

One line will be a 300,000st/yr galvanizing line with galvalume capabilities and a 240,000st/yr paint line. Galvalume products are used in the metal building industry.

SDI expects both lines to begin production in the second half of 2022.

In the Midwest, SDI aims to spend between $175mn and $200mn on another pair of coating lines to support its regional flat-rolled steel operations. Those new lines will also consist of a 300,000st/yr galvanizing line with galvalume capabilities and a 240,000st/yr paint line. Both are expected to begin operation in the second half of 2022.

SDI operates two EAF-based flat-rolled mills, one in Butler, Indiana, and another in Columbus, Mississippi, which have a combined annual production rate of 6.4mn st/yr of flat-rolled products.

The investments are the latest by a US-based EAF steelmaker. Nucor announced in March that it would spend $164mn to build a 250,000st/yr structural tube mill in Kentucky on the campus of its Gallatin, Kentucky, sheet mill.

By Rye Druzin