BlueScope calls US growth sustainability-focused

BlueScope Steel Ltd., based in Australia, has pointed to its scrap-fed North Star electric arc furnace (EAF) mill in Ohio when announcing the release of its 2022 sustainability report. “Our growth and acquisitions in the United States have focused on the circular economy and expanding our coated and painting footprint,” the company says.

One of its most recent recycling-related growth measures has been the acquisition of the former Milliron Recycling shredder yard in Mansfield, Ohio, in August. The prior year, BlueScope North Star acquired the shredders and other ferrous recycling assets of Indiana-based MetalX.

In the early years of this decade, BlueScope also invested heavily in its Ohio North Star operations, undertaking an expansion project that will allow the company to produce an additional 850,000 tons of steel at the site annually.

In its newly released sustainability report, the company highlights the role of recycling in the overall steel industry, writing, “Today, more than 50 percent of the world’s steel is made from obsolete scrap (from end-of-life used products that have been recycled). Across BF-BOF [blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace] steelmaking and EAF steelmaking, this is expected to increase to around 67 percent in 2050 as steel stocks built up over the previous decades reach end of life.”

BlueScope then adds a note of caution, writing, “Unfortunately, current and predicted future demand for steel far exceeds the amount of steel reaching end-of-life, and therefore making its way into the scrap supply chain. Acknowledging that global scrap steel supplies are insufficient to produce enough steel through scrap based EAF steelmaking to meet expected steel demand, steel produced from virgin iron will continue to play a critical role in the future.”

Nonetheless, the company says it is “seeking opportunities to increase scrap recycling in all steelmaking locations,” and writes of its Ohio efforts that its mill there “is strategically located in Delta, Ohio, in a key scrap-rich area near its customers. BlueScope Recycling and Materials [the former MetalX assets], acquired during the year, is a full-service, ferrous scrap metal recycler with one of its two processing facilities adjacent to our North Star BlueScope Steel facility. In August 2022, a third ferrous scrap processing site [Milliron Recycling] was acquired.”

The full 72-page BlueScope 2022 sustainability report data supplement can be found here.