Published: Monday, November 08, 2010, 7:22 PM ??? Updated: Monday, November 08, 2010, 7:22 PM
The first steel slabs bound for Calvert from ThyssenKrupp AG’s mill in Brazil took another step toward their destination today.
Using magnetic cranes, workers at the Alabama State Port Authority’s Pinto Island terminal began unloading the 2,216 slabs, which average weighing close to 25 tons each. Crane operators stacked the slabs on the ground to await transfer to the barges that will carry them up the Mobile and Tombigbee rivers to ThyssenKrupp’s barge terminal.
The Hermann-S, operated by the U-SEA Bulk line, arrived in Mobile Sunday afternoon, 16 days after departing from ThyssenKrupp’s $5.7 billion mill at Santa Cruz, just west of Rio de Janeiro. The 623-foot-long ship carried 50,015 metric tons of steel slab. Unloading is expected to continue through Tuesday.
The Brazilian mill, a joint venture between ThyssenKrupp and iron ore mining firm Vale SA, is meant to supply 5 million metric tons of raw steel per year at full capacity. Of that, 3 million tons will go to ThyssenKrupp’s carbon steel operation in Alabama with 2 million tons directed to the firm’s European plants. The receiving mills will process and finish the steel.
"We’re inaugurating the supply chain that will enable us to provide our customers with the highest-quality products," ThyssenKrupp spokesman Scott Posey said in a statement.
The Brazilian mill made its first slab in September. State docks Director Jimmy Lyons said the second shipment is already en route from Brazil.
ThyssenKrupp has already begun processing carbon steel in Calvert, using slabs from its blast furnace in Duisburg, Germany. Those slabs cost more than the ones from Brazil.
Because the economic recovery in Germany has been relatively strong, ThyssenKrupp has had to return to its historic practice of buying steel slabs from outside suppliers.
ThyssenKrupp managers have said they plan to fire up a second blast furnace in Brazil by the end of this year — a year earlier than planned — ensuring the company control of its own low-cost supply of raw steel. ?
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