Osceola, Arkansas-based Big River Steel announced today that it has begun operations in its melt shop and hot mill. These are the third and fourth areas of the mill to be commissioned following the batch anneal facility and temper mill.
The first hot rolled coil was purchased by Zekelman Industries and will be sent to Atlas Tube, one of the company's structural tube mills in Blytheville, Arkansas. Zekelman Industries purchased the coil for $100,000 with the entire amount jointly contributed by Big River and Zekelman Industries to Wounded Warrior Project and Arkansas Northeastern College.
Under construction since July 2014, Big River has incorporated new steelmaking technology and will recycle approximately 2 million tons of scrap metal and other metallics to produce 1.6 million tons of finished steel products annually. This is the first steel mill in North America to connect an electric arc furnace (EAF) to a Ruhrstahl Heraeus degasser and will be the only EAF mill in the United States to produce hot rolled steel as thick as 1" and as wide as 78".