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Global Marketplace
www.read-tpt.comMarch
2013
67
for hot stamping. As reported by
Dow Jones Newswires
(3 December), the company said that, in setting aside a
January 2012 ruling in Delaware invalidating the patent as
pertaining to aluminium precoated steel products for hot
stamping, the decision confirms that the patent is not limited
to hot-rolled steel.
ArcelorMittal produces Usibor steel for the American
automotive industry at its operations in Indiana. According
to the Luxembourg-based company’s website, the steel is
intended mainly for use in structural and safety parts and
meets all the requirements of lighter-weight vehicles. It was
designed to be heat-treated and tempered during the hot-
stamping process.
›
Europe’s largest steel mill will remain open during a two-
year clean-up operation after the Italian government
rushed through legislation to keep the ILVA plant going. The
move saves 12,000 jobs in the southern Italian city of Taranto.
As reported by
euronews
(1 December), the operators will
have to invest $5bn to modernise the mill.
An investigation into health and environmental issues had
threatened the plant. Estimating that a closure would drain
more than $10bn from Italy’s economy, the government of
Prime Minister Mario Monti stepped in.
According to the company’s website, ILVA contributes 75 per
cent to the gross domestic product (GDP) of Taranto Province.
›
A steel tubing producer on the West Coast of the US
announced that its first significant expansion in years
is set for Cheyenne, Wyoming, some 1,000 miles to the
east.
As reported by the
Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
(4 January),
Searing Industries, Inc (Rancho Cucamonga, California) said
it will produce structural, mechanical and ornamental tubing
in a new 200,000ft
2
facility in Cheyenne. Groundbreaking will
be in August or September, with commissioning in the first
quarter of 2014.
›
As reported by the Cambodian Information Center on
4 January, two Chinese companies announced their
agreement to build a railway, a port and a steel plant in
Cambodia.
San Sok Lika, a Cambodian official working with Chinese-
owned Cambodia Iron & Steel Mining Industry, said that
construction should begin by July. The other participant is
China Railway Group.
Chinese companies have invested heavily in Cambodia over
the last decade. The projects announced in January include
a 249-mile rail line to run from the steel plant, in northern
Preah Vihear province, to a port in Koh Kong in Cambodia’s
southwest.
Dorothy Fabian, Features Editor (USA)