Germany's biggest steelmaker, ThyssenKrupp AG, has announced that its North American subsidiary ThyssenKrupp Stainless USA has started the construction of a new electric arc furnace (EAF) meltshop in Calvert, Alabama, for the production of stainless steel slabs. The startup of the meltshop is scheduled for December 2012.
Accordingly, the new meltshop, with a capacity of 900,000 to one million mt per year, will consist of a 160-ton EAF, a 180-ton argon oxygen decarburization (AOD) converter, and a 72 inch (1,900 millimeter) continuous caster.
The stainless steel slabs it produces will be rolled into hot band on the hot strip mill of sister company ThyssenKrupp Steel USA. Of this hot band, around 340,000 mt per year will go to ThyssenKrupp Mexinox in San Luis Potosí (Mexico). Another roughly 525,000 mt per year will be transformed in the cold rolling mill into 175,000 mt of white hot rolled (up to 10 mm thickness) and 350,000 mt of stainless cold rolled (0.5-5 mm thickness). Until the meltshop starts production, ThyssenKrupp Stainless USA is being supplied with slabs from the group's European mills.
ThyssenKrupp is already well-positioned with stainless steel flat products on the NAFTA market. It has a market share of roughly 12 percent in the US and over 15 percent in Canada, while in Mexico the company is the market leader with over 70 percent.