Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Ferrous Processing and Trading Company (FPT) for a total enterprise value of approximately $775 million. Based in Detroit, FPT is among the largest processors and distributors of prime ferrous scrap in the United States, representing approximately 15% of the domestic merchant prime scrap market. The company currently processes approximately 3 million tons of scrap per year, approximately half of which is prime grade. FPT operates 22 scrap processing facilities, with approximately 90% of revenues originating from its Midwest locations, primarily in Michigan and Ohio.

ArcelorMittal Belgium will reduce CO₂ emissions by 3.9 million metric tons per year by 2030 by building a 2.5-million-metric-ton direct reduced iron (DRI) plant and two electric-arc furnaces (EAFs) at its Ghent site to operate alongside a blast furnace that is ready to take waste wood and plastics as a substitute for fossil carbon. A DRI plant uses natural gas, and potentially hydrogen, instead of coal to reduce iron ore, which results in a reduction in CO₂ emissions compared with blast-furnace ironmaking. The two EAFs will melt the DRI and scrap steel, which will then be transformed into steel slabs and then further processed into finished products.

Primetals Technologies started up an electric-arc furnace (EAF) it supplied to specialty materials producer Allegheny Technologies Inc. (ATI) for its Latrobe, Pa., facility. The EAF, which is designed to process a wide range of input materials and will replace equipment coming to the end of its useful life, increases flexibility and reliability while reducing energy consumption and maintenance requirements. It is part of ATI’s transformation of its Specialty Rolled Products business, which serves customers in aerospace, defense and other highly demanding markets. Primetals Technologies engineered the EAF specifically for foundry applications. It is suitable for melting and refining. The project also included the hydraulics for furnace movement and automation systems.

United States Steel Corp. announced an exploratory site selection process to build a new 3-million-ton flat-rolled minimill in the United States. The planned minimill will combine two state-of-the-art electric-arc furnaces (EAFs) with differentiated steelmaking and finishing technology, including purchased equipment already owned by the company. The continued adoption of minimill technology will expand U.S. Steel’s ability to produce the next generation of proprietary sustainable steel solutions, including advanced high-strength steels (AHSS). Potential locations include states in which the company has existing EAF operations and greenfield sites. The current estimated investment is approximately $3 billion.

Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc. successfully restarted production at its Cascade Steel Rolling Mills in McMinnville, Ore. The company also entered into an agreement to purchase the assets of Columbus Recycling in the southeast region of the United States. Cascade restarted production following the completion of replacement and repairs of property and equipment at the mill’s melt shop, which had been lost or damaged by a fire on May 22, 2021. Cascade has resumed operations with a full workforce and is accepting orders for its full range of finished steel products based on the rolling schedule.

Nucor Steel has an extensive special bar quality (SBQ) steel program that dates back to the conversion of its plants in South Carolina, Tennessee and Nebraska to handle the product decades ago.

ArcelorMittal will invest approximately $1.2 billion in decarbonization technologies at its Asturias plant in Gijón, Spain. The project will reduce CO₂ emissions at the company’s Spanish operations by up to 4.8 million metric tons, which represents approximately 50% of emissions, within the next five years. At the heart of the plan is a 2.3 million-metric-ton green-hydrogen direct reduced iron (DRI) unit, complemented by a 1.1 million-metric-ton hybrid electric-arc furnace (EAF). This starts the transition of the Gijón plant away from the blast-furnace and basic-oxygen-furnace steelmaking production route to the DRI-EAF production route, which carries a significantly lower carbon footprint. The new DRI, which ArcelorMittal says will be the first of its kind in Spain, and EAF will be in production before the end of 2025. 

United States Steel Corp. expanded its commitment to sustainability by setting a goal targeting net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. To achieve its net-zero goal for 2050, U.S. Steel expects to leverage its growing fleet of electric-arc furnaces (EAF) coupled with technologies such as: direct-reduced iron; carbon-free energy sources; and carbon capture, sequestration and utilization. Achievement of the goal also depends on public-private collaboration across industries and global stakeholders to develop supportive breakthroughs, including access to commercially available carbon-neutral electricity sources.

Tenova received an order from Italy’s NLMK Verona for the turnkey supply of a 70-ton vacuum oxygen decarburization (VOD) plant with level 1 and level 2 automation and a deslagging machine. The scope of the contract includes engineering, supply, erection of all equipment, supervision of erection, commissioning and training. The VOD plant will expand the company’s existing production route, which currently includes an electric-arc furnace (EAF), two ladle furnaces, a vacuum degassing system, a continuous casting plant and an ingot casting plant.

Stelco Holdings Inc. announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Stelco Inc., successfully commissioned a new pig-iron caster at its Lake Erie Works facility. It has the capability of casting up to 1 million tons of pig iron per year. The addition of the pig-iron caster will allow the company to fully capitalize on increased capacity resulting from its recently completed blast-furnace upgrade project. With the expansion of EAF production in North America, the demand for iron units is placing increased pressure on the existing supply of scrap steel, making pig iron a highly valued commodity in the production of EAF steel.