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Steel Dynamics to Expand Structural Capacity with New Caster at Columbia City
08/01/2007 - Steel Dynamics’ Board of Directors has approved an additional investment of $75 million to install a second caster at its Structural and Rail Division at Columbia City, Ind., complementing the second medium section mill that is currently under construction.
Steel Dynamics’ Board of Directors has approved an additional investment of $75 million to install a second caster at its Structural and Rail Division at Columbia City, Ind. The expansion will help to facilitate production of larger quantities of semi-finished steel, increasing the mill's combined production capacity for structural steel and rail to 2 million tons/year.
The new caster will provide sufficient additional steel to allow both rolling mills to operate at a production capacity of approximately one million tons/year. While the initial installation will comprise four strands, the new bloom/billet caster will be expandable to five strands in the future as warranted by market conditions. The new caster will result in the addition of about 50 new jobs at the mill.
Installation of a second caster complements a previously announced $200-million mill expansion that is currently underway at the Columbia City facility. The project comprises the addition of a second one million ton/year medium-section rolling mill. The new will be capable of rolling some of the lighter products currently made on the existing mill as well as new light structural steel products.
"Since Steel Dynamics announced the addition of the second rolling mill at Columbia City last year, the markets for structural and rail products have remained strong and our assessment is that this is a market where Steel Dynamics can continue to grow," said Dick Teets, President and COO for Steel Shapes and Building Products. "We believe the combination of the customer relationships we have built in the five years since we entered the structural steel business, our central upper-Midwest location, and our low cost-structure will allow us to compete successfully as we expand our capacity to serve the market and introduce new products to the marketplace.
"We are acting now to add the needed casting capacity to allow the new rolling mill to ramp up more quickly to its rated capacity. When the medium-section mill project was announced a year ago, we expected to meet some of the needs of the new mill from excess production of semi-finished steel shipped from the company's Pittsboro bar mill. Since then, we decided to increase our rolling capacity at Pittsboro, which will commit that semi-finished steel for the Pittsboro mill's own use. Producing additional semi-finished steel at Columbia City will lower costs and further compress the Division's cost per ton." Teets said.
Production volume at the Columbia City mill has grown significantly since its start-up in July of 2002, with the mill shipping more than a million tons in 2006 and operating at a rate of nearly 1.2 million tons/year in the first half of 2007. Built with the flexibility to produce wide-flange beams with web heights ranging from 6 to 36 inches as well as and h-piling, the mill is also capable of producing standard- and premium-quality long rails for railway use. Although it was commissioned to produce rail, thus far the mill has produced only limited quantities of rail because of strong demand for wide-flange beams for the non-residential construction market.
The new caster is scheduled to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2008. When it and the new rolling mill are complete, the Columbia City operation will have the flexibility to schedule each of its rolling mills to produce the products best suited to its capabilities. The operation will also have the ability to adjust its production plan to produce a mix of products best matched to market demand.
Current estimates of a possible annual product mix under full-utilization conditions would be 1.4 million tons of wide-flange beams and h-piling, 300,000 tons of light structural shapes (including angles, channels, and flats), and 300,000 tons of rail.
