EoW May 2013

Transatlantic cable

A lightweight automotive steel from AK Steel is proof against a patent infringement suit brought by ArcelorMittal Stronger, lighter-weight steel components gain in importance as car makers in the US focus on safety and fuel e ciency. Ultralume, from AK Steel (West Chester, Ohio), is an aluminised boron steel designed to meet increasingly stringent standards for automotive applications. It is intended primarily for hot-stamped, press-hardened applications in which ultimate tensile strength is under 1,500 megapascals (MPa). As described in the Mans eld (Ohio) News Journal (26 th March), Ultralume steel is quickly heated, stamped into shape, and quickly cooled. The heating and cooling alter the crystalline structure, converting the steel into austenite and martensite. According to the manufacturer, it becomes stronger and is also readily shaped into thinner, lighter-weight parts. In an action brought in January 2010, Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, which operates a tubular products facility in Ohio, alleged that AK Steel infringed its patent for an aluminium-based coating applied after a boron sheet is rolled to its nal thickness. In November 2012, the ArcelorMittal suit was rejected by jury verdict. Now, AK Steel has again prevailed against ArcelorMittal. In mid-March the European company’s appeal for a re-hearing of its case was denied by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The decision a rms that ArcelorMittal’s patent was not infringed and permits AK Steel to continue selling Ultralume. Elsewhere in steel . . . † A proposed $1 billion steel plant, announced in late January, to be built in Osceola, Arkansas, has received approval for $14.5 million in funds from the Mississippi County Quorum Court. The Big River Steel plant is now under review by the Arkansas state legislature for $125 million in general obligation bonds. If approval is gained, the plant could break ground this autumn and be completed in 20 months. Michael She eld of the Memphis (Tennessee) Business Journal reported that the project is opposed by Nucor Steel Corp (Charlotte, North Carolina), which operates a steel mill in Osceola. The company’s opposition centres on the funding of the general obligation bonds by Arkansas taxpayers, resulting in the use of Nucor employees’ money to “subsidise a direct competitor.” John Correnti, the former Nucor executive who is the developer of Big River Steel, holds that the new plant would produce steel for industries not currently supplied by Nucor. Big River will produce for the automotive, oil and gas, and electrical energy industries. Random notes † Marking the beginning of the 2013 Great Lakes shipping season, the US Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District, announced the opening of Soo Locks in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, at 12.01am on 24 th March. For the Port of Cleveland the season began a week earlier, with the opening of the St Lawrence Seaway, but for the Ohioans the more signi cant occasion would be the arrival of the rst international vessel of the season, traditionally marked by a ceremony. On 27 th March this year’s honoree – the Federal Welland , from the Netherlands – dropped o about 13,000 tons of steel before heading north toward Milwaukee and other ports. David Gutheil, who is vice-president of maritime and logistics for the Port of Cleveland, told the Sault Ste Marie Evening News (24 th March) that in 2012 his port

that own and operate the bridge for their purchases of steel from China for the new self-anchored suspension span of the bridge. The discovery that stabilising steel rods in the span had cracked prompted early concerns about shoddy material from overseas. But the supplier of the rods is Dyson Corp (Painesville, Ohio), a maker of large-diameter fastening systems (“100% melted and manufactured in the USA,” according to the company’s website). As reported by Will Reisman of the San Francisco Examiner (29 th March), the major part of the steel in the new suspension span – the soaring centre-piece of the bridge’s eastern section – came from China. The rods, which bolt the roadway to the towers rising out of the water, form part of a relatively minor collection of domestic products that went into building the span. John Goodwin of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the nine-county San Francisco Bay area transit agency, told the Examiner that American rms won 76 per cent of the contracts for the eastern span rebuild project. That gure includes everything from temporary sca olding structures to small rebar strands. While bridge o cials have acknowledged that there should have been more oversight before the steel rods were embedded into the concrete of the span, Mr Goodwin said that both his MTC and Caltrans, the state agency, remain committed to the purchase of domestic materials for public-works projects. † “There are questions about the degree of materials testing,” the public information o cer told the Examiner 's Mr Reisman. “But this doesn’t push the needle one way or another when it comes to contracting with domestic rms.” Mr Reisman reported that Gary Hubbard of the United Steelworkers of America, which backed the Bay Bridge billboard campaign of 2012, said that his union was monitoring news reports and looking into the facts of the Bay Bridge case. The union spokesman observed that Dyson workers do not hold Steelworkers membership. US Steel will stay in Slovakia, saving some 12,500 jobs at its Kosice plant A signed agreement between the Slovak government and US Steel (Pittsburgh), announced 26 th March, ensures that Slovakia’s biggest employer will continue as owner of a steel mill in the eastern city of Kosice for at least ve more years. The plant, now US Steel’s sole overseas operation, is a major supplier to the growing Slovak automotive industry. It employs about 12,500 people in a country with a jobless rate of almost 15 per cent. US Steel reportedly had received o ers for the steel works, which it purchased in 2000. But apparently, after months of negotiations, a determined last push by Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, persuaded the American steel giant to retain its Slovak connection. “Today, we created conditions to motivate US Steel to stay in Slovakia and continue to produce steel,” Mr Fico said, a day after meeting with John Surma, the CEO of US Steel, at the company’s Pittsburgh headquarters. The Fico government said the agreement includes details of energy costs and environment protection but o ers no tax breaks. The Kosice plant is rated to account for ve million tons of US Steel’s annual raw steel making capacity of about 29 million tons. Actual production in Kosice was 4.2 million tons in 2011 and 4.4 million tons in 2012. † Early last year, in an e ort to keep 5,400 workers in their jobs, the government of Serbia bought a money-losing US Steel plant for the symbolic sum of one dollar.

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May 2013