Ferrous

Turning A Tide

For the past two decades, North American electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmakers have largely stood to the side as integrated steelmakers tried to protect their markets with trade laws.

But conditions in recent years have brought the scrap-melting EAF steelmakers off the sidelines and into the game, Dan DiMicco, president and CEO of Nucor Corp., Charlotte, N.C., told attendees of the Gulf Coast Chapter Convention of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc.

Paraphrasing John F. Kennedy, DiMicco said, “they talk about a rising tide lifting all ships; well a tidal wave will drown all ships. There has been a tidal wave of imports coming into this country. Unless we take drastic action, which we have been taking, we will go down with everybody else.”

Nucor and other EAF steelmakers represented by the Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA), Washington, are now working in cooperation with integrated steelmakers represented by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), Washington, and the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) trade union to work with Congress and the Bush Administration to protect American steel industry interests.

Most recently, their lobbying efforts resulted in a Section 201 trade investigation that could authorize restraints on steel imports.

“”For the first time since the beginning of the mini-mill age, all of the steel producers, integrated and mini-mill alike and the USWA, have things in common that have brought us together because it is a matter of not just succeeding, but of surviving,” said DiMicco.