EoW March 2013

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“It’s been di cult,” said MRP foreman Darren Colgan – a native
of Bolton, England – of the recent mass layo s. “We’re slowing
down now that the job’s coming to an end.” The Daily Record
pointed out that this will also mean the end of some serious
headaches. One World Trade Center is in the shape of a square
at its base; becomes a series of interconnected triangles several
dozen stories up; and is octagonal toward the middle. Not
even the segments of the spire are without challenges. “It’s a
nightmare,” Mr Colgan said. “It’s as though all the engineers
got together in a room and asked who can make the most
complicated design.”
What is more, the new skyscraper had to adhere to new
building parameters requiring strength su cient to withstand
a powerful bomb blast or even moderate seismic activity.
Mr Floyd, the company president, explained that in some
respects this made construction “uniquely redundant”. “No one
has ever done anything quite like this,” he said of the approxi-
mately $3.8 billion construction project. “When we submitted
our bid, I had a terrible sinking feeling that we’d be successful.”
† The company’s hometown newspaper was reassuring. It
will be di erent, Mr Spivey wrote, when One World Trade
Center opens its doors for the rst time. According to the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, owner of the
building, the opening is slated for later this year, with some
interior t-out continuing into 2014.
Elsewhere in steel
Are copper-nickel projects drawing
meddlesome attention to taconite mining in
Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range?
On the same week of the Clairton announcement, John
Surma gave a speech to the Economic Club of Minnesota. The
theme was that the company he serves, US Steel Corp, has
operated taconite mines a long time in the state and remains
a major contributor to the economic vitality of northeastern
Minnesota. As reported by business columnist Lee Schafer of the
Minneapolis Star Tribune , it was a scarcely controversial message,
delivered by a genial CEO to a friendly audience. But, Mr Shafer
observed, “There was an agenda, of course, if you listened for
it. It turns out US Steel is frustrated with regulators.” After the
speech, when asked about what has changed in the way his
industry is regulated in Minnesota, Mr Surma shared some
discontents. He has perceived a “lack of clarity” in the regulatory
process, and he knows where the blame lies. There seems to be,
he said, “a lot more discussion, and a lot more people who seem
to want to be in a position to say no.” (“US Steel’s Subtle Message
on Its Frustrations with Regulators,” 1st February).
The Star Tribune’s Mr Schafer pointed out something else
that has changed for US Steel in Minnesota: the presence of
companies like PolyMet Mining Corp, which is seeking permits
to begin production of copper, nickel, and precious metals at
its mine and processing facility at the eastern end of the Mesabi
Iron Range. And, behind PolyMet, there are other copper-nickel
mining projects not as far along. Supplying context, Mr Schafer
noted that mining for taconite is hardly a clean industry, but
that it has experienced nothing like the kind of problems that
have cropped up with copper and nickel mining in other parts
of the world. PolyMet, he said, “has been grinding away on its
permitting process for years.” When asked whether intensi ed
environmental review of mining as a result of copper and nickel
projects has changed the dynamic for US Steel in Minnesota,
Mr Surma responded that copper and nickel mining is a di erent
business from his. He said he wished those mining rms well.
Mr Schafer was not entirely convinced. Obviously, he wrote,
however irritated US Steel may become at greater regulation
it cannot move its taconite mines out of Minnesota. Mr Surma
himself said that – short of a dramatic, and unlikely, contraction
in North American steel demand – there is not much that would
cause US Steel to signi cantly reduce its level of investment in
the state. Indeed, about a quarter of the company’s $800 million
capital budget this year will go to Minnesota. On the other hand,
commented the Star Tribune, there are choices that will come up
some day, on where to build plants with newer technology or
otherwise invest US Steel money. “It was very subtle,” wrote Mr
Schafer. “But that message was delivered.”
New, cleaner coke ovens at the
Clairton Works of US Steel are expected to
satisfy environmental objections
US Steel has commissioned a battery of coke ovens at its
Clairton plant about 20 miles south of the company’s Pittsburgh
headquarters. Clairton is North America’s largest coke plant,
producing about 4.5 million tons annually. The new C Battery,
which will begin operating later this year, has a rated capacity of
960,000 tons of coke. The $500 million project was scaled back
from a $1 billion proposal announced by the steel maker in
late 2007, before the global recession caused the retrenchment
of the industry. As reported by Len Boselovic of the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette (1st February), the original intention was to build
two new batteries. Under the modi ed plan, US Steel agreed to
make environmental improvements to three existing batteries it
had planned to demolish if the second battery had been built.
According to Allegheny County Health Department data cited
by Mr Boselovic, areas near the Clairton plant and a Neville
Island coke plant operated by DTE Energy Services have had
some of the dirtiest air in the region in recent years.
At the commissioning ceremony at Clairton on 31st January,
US Steel’s president and CEO John P Surma said that the
new battery uses technology that will enable the plant to
signi cantly reduce emissions and meet certain air quality
standards 18 months earlier than the target date set by state
o cials. Mr Surma also said that US Steel is nearing completion
of a coke substitute project at its Gary Works, in Indiana, that
will produce 500,000 tons a year. Taken together with Clairton,
the two projects will enable the company to supply all of its coke
needs internally. According to Mr Surma, buying coke on the
open market from sources in China, Ukraine and elsewhere costs
the company almost twice as much as making it.
† United Steelworkers union president Leo Gerard was at least
as enthusiastic as the US Steel chief about the new C Battery,
calling it “the most environmentally sound, emission reducing
coke plant probably anywhere in the world.” The project
secures the jobs of 1,300 Clairton employees as well as 1,400
who work at the company’s Edgar Thomson plant in Braddock
and the Irvin plant inWest Mi in, both in Pennsylvania.
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