Steel news of the week - Americas

Steel news of the week - Americas

Nucor provides reason to work in Nebraska The new dsNucor Steel facility in Norfolk, Nebraska is expected to give the local community a much-needed economic boost. Nucor Steel's Detailing Center, officially ready for production since Wednesday (November 9), is in the process of hiring skilled workers to perform a number of drafting tasks, focusing on construction plans. The company is working in conjunction with Northeast Community College to try to recruit drafting students, encouraging them to stay in Northeast Nebraska after graduating. "If you go home, tonight, and you're frustrated with your homework, look at that desk over there that your name could be on in a couple of years and imagine how nice that is," State Senator Mike Flood told local students. Nucor has already hired 14 employees and expects to hire five to six detailers per quarter over the next few years. Production is expected to begin within the next couple of months. Powerline theft bad idea, in hindsight More steel thiefs were nabbed this week – only this time it was not scrap that they stole, it was about a mile of powerline wire, made of steel and copper. In Yakima, Washington this week, three suspects were caught with a truck full of wire and methamphetamines. The suspects had chosen a deactivated wire and taken it down from 35-foot poles – all for nothing. "It has very little, if any, salvage value," said Craig Dawsey, general of Benton REA, the utility company that owns the wire. There have been several high-profile scrap metal thefts in Yakima County recently, including a theft that targeted the area's trolley line. There was also an event involving a would-be copper theif who shot at a farmer who chased him off his land. "It typically has to do with people needing to get money for whatever purpose, and more often than not that's drugs," said sheriff's Captain Charles Kissler. Man fatally injured at Cleveland-Cliffs facility A man died Sunday in a tragic accident while on the job at Empire Mine in Richard Township, Michigan. Twenty-eight-year-old assistant plant manager Chad Weston was caught in a machine that cools iron ore pellets late Sunday morning, and was pronounced dead after emergency medical technicians transferred him to the local Marquette General Hospital. Cleveland-Cliffs released a statement Sunday night (November 6) which read, “This incident is very regrettable and we offer our condolences to Mr. Weston's family. We will continue to pursue our joint investigation (with the Mine Safety and Health Administration) into the accident." Sheffield Steel gets contract for new ladle furnace Oklahoma steelmaker Sheffield Steel Corporation has given the Siemens Group Industrial Solutions Services a contract to engineer, supply, and install a new ladle furnace. The furnace has a capacity of 85 tons, and will treat up to 750'000 tons of full range carbon and low- alloy steel grades. Also included in the project are: a Level 2 process-optimization system, a ladel-furnace transformermer, ladle turret, an alloy and lime addition system, a fume exhaust system, and a water treatment facility. Sheffield Steel has scheduled the ladle furnace start-up for the Fall of 2006. Sheffield Steel is a leading regional minimill, supplying hot-rolled steel bar products,k concrete reinforcing bar, fabricated products and billets to regional markets. USW gives union retirees a break The United Steelworkers announced this week that Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel retirees who lost their health coverage when the company went bankrupt will receive increased benefits, as will surviving spouses of employees who retired prior to 1974. Premiums for Medicare-eligible Wheeling-Pitt retirees and surviving spouses will be reduced by $350 to $500 per year, starting in 2006. "The USW remains committed to the retirees who had benefits for which they worked their whole lives stripped away in bankruptcy court," said Wheeling- Pitt Negotiating Committee Chairman and USW District 1 Director David McCall. "Our union is proud to help restore a measure of coverage for the men and women whose generations of sacrifice enabled us to build a better life for ourselves." McCall said that the union will continue to help keep premiums as low as possible for union retirees, but would not limit its efforts to stop-gap measures in times of crisis.