Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Steel may be old, but Asia helps makes it a hot commodity here
Newcor Steel in Seattle is selling remelt (recycled) steel to Asia.
Seattle Times Newspaper
Late in 2007, containers of raw steel began leaving Nucor Seattle for buyers in Taiwan and Indonesia as the city's only steel mill began exporting steel to Asia.
It is a small amount. Perhaps more significant, Canada, a tariff-free market, takes 30 percent of the plant's output. The Seattle plant is operating its melt shop five days a week in three shifts — and is asking the pollution-control authorities to allow it to add a fourth shift and operate 24/7.
We are used to booming aircraft and software — but steel is old.
Think of it as recycling. The feedstock for the Seattle plant begins as steel cans tossed into a thousand recycling bins. It begins also as junkyard cars, derelict appliances and tangles of old reinforcing bar torn from demolished buildings. Call it scrap. At the plant in West Seattle, the old steel is grabbed by giant magnets and plunked into an electric-arc furnace to be reborn as youthful steel. All the steel made here is this recycled kind.
Seattle Times Newspaper
Late in 2007, containers of raw steel began leaving Nucor Seattle for buyers in Taiwan and Indonesia as the city's only steel mill began exporting steel to Asia.
It is a small amount. Perhaps more significant, Canada, a tariff-free market, takes 30 percent of the plant's output. The Seattle plant is operating its melt shop five days a week in three shifts — and is asking the pollution-control authorities to allow it to add a fourth shift and operate 24/7.
We are used to booming aircraft and software — but steel is old.
Think of it as recycling. The feedstock for the Seattle plant begins as steel cans tossed into a thousand recycling bins. It begins also as junkyard cars, derelict appliances and tangles of old reinforcing bar torn from demolished buildings. Call it scrap. At the plant in West Seattle, the old steel is grabbed by giant magnets and plunked into an electric-arc furnace to be reborn as youthful steel. All the steel made here is this recycled kind.
Labels: steel
