EAF mill investors commit to Pennsylvania site

A groundbreaking ceremony was held May 16 in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, for a proposed electric arc furnace (EAF) steel rebar mill. The facility, backed by investment group 72 Steel LLC, is planned for the site of a former Jones & Laughlin blast furnace steelmaking complex.

Founded in 2016, 72 Steel lists United States locations in Brooklyn and Flushing, New York, and is involved in steel processing, sales and construction. Its president is Lin Huabin, who is from Fuqing county in China’s Fujian province. 

According to 72 Steel, the proposed Pennsylvania mill will be on a 44-acre parcel of land and requires a total investment of approximately $218 million.

The 72 Steel report also assigns the mill an annual output figure of 500,000 tons, adding it will “mainly produce and sell all kinds of rebar and section steel (channel steel, flat steel, angle steel, steel plate, square steel, round steel, I-beam, etc.).”

“In the future, the comprehensive production capacity and output value of the steel project will reach $400 million," 72 Steel says.

A report by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette indicates arrangements for the likely scrap-fed EAF mill are not yet finalized, however, and says property owner Chuck Betters told it 72 Steel had not closed on the land purchase, but wrote that Betters is optimistic a deal will be signed soon.

The land in Aliquippa was host to former steelmaking operations starting early in the 20^th century, according to the report. The Post-Gazette says Jones & Laughlin produced steel there for several decades before being taken over by the former LTV Corp.

That firm closed the blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace Aliquippa Works in 1984, and most of the structures were dismantled later that decade.

Landowner Betters told KDKA-TV that other portions of the land in Aliquippa already have been sold, with some going to abrasives manufacturer U.S. Minerals and another parcel going to recycled-content building products maker Versatex.