WCA September 2008

the fuel-efficient small cars whose popularity has soared along with the record-high gasoline prices in the US. In an interesting aside on Chrysler’s Chinese partner ❖ ❖ Chery Automobile Corp, Ford Motor (Dearborn, Michigan) on 7 th July declined comment on a report in the Chinese business journal Caijing that Chery had expressed interest in buying Ford’s Volvo unit. Unidentified sources were quoted to the effect that Chery is contemplating a bid for the US company’s stylish Swedish brand. Ford has said that it is seeking to improve Volvo’s sales, not to sell it. The Russian metals and mining company OAO Severstal ❖ ❖ said it has completed its acquisition of WCI Steel (Warren, Ohio), which is to be known as Severstal Warren Inc. Severstal, which gains 1.2 million metric tons of annual steelmaking capacity with WCI, said on 7 th July that the acquisition would solidify its position in the North American market. Under the terms of the agreement, originally announced in May, Severstal will pay $140 million in cash and also redeem some $100 million of outstanding WCI notes due in 2016. Severstal also recently purchased the Sparrows Point steel plant outside Baltimore, promising to invest a half-billion dollars to update it and begin running it at capacity. The Russian giant is also bidding against Essar Steel, an Indian firm, for control of Esmark, which runs a mill in West Virginia. In addition, the company is expanding its Severcorr plant in Mississippi. The facility is one of some half-dozen steel mills currently being expanded in the US. Nucor Corporation (Charlotte, North Carolina), which ❖ ❖ makes more steel in the US than any other company, continues to pursue a long-term goal of increasing control over its raw materials supply. The company said it has applied for a permit to build a state-of-the-art iron making facility in St James Parish, Louisiana. While the project, Nucor Steel Louisiana, is not a certainty, the planning is well advanced. Nucor contemplates one of the most modern iron making facilities in the world, employing emissions-reduction technologies to produce 3 million tons of pig iron annually. The facility is to use advanced heat-recovery coke technology to capture waste heat and use it to produce energy, making the operation self-sufficient in power. In other news of Nucor, the company on 12 th June announced that its wholly owned subsidiary Harris Steel, Inc had signed an agreement to purchase Ambassador Steel Corp (Auburn, Indiana) for approximately $185 million in cash. Ambassador is one of the largest independent fabricators and distributors of concrete reinforcing steel and related products in the United States. In 2007, it shipped 422,000 tons of fabricated rebar and distributed another 228,000 tons of reinforcing steel. With the Ambassador acquisition, said Daniel R DiMicco, Nucor’s chairman, his company was “enhancing its national footprint in the rebar fabrication market.” Steel

Dorothy Fabian – Features Editor

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Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2008