Peruvian Steelmaker Buys Florida Scrap Yards

Peruvian steelmaker Corporación Aceros Arequipa S.A. (CAASA) has purchased two scrap yards in Florida to ensure it has enough raw materials for a new steel mill.

The assets purchased include a shredder as well as a magnetic metal separation system, according to a notice filed with Peruvian securities regulators. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“With this acquisition, CAASA takes an important step in its vertical integration strategy – reinforcing the supply of recycled steel for its new steel plant in Pisco,” the company said in the notice.

The shredder will supply the new mill, while the separation system will allow the company to segregate ferrous and nonferrous scrap and to sell the latter on the export market, primarily to Asia.

German equipment supplier SMS Group announced in 2019 that it had received an order from Aceros Arequipa for a 120-ton electric arc furnace (EAF) and billet caster with annual capacity of 1.2 million tons per year.

Billet is a semifinished steel product that is rolled into long products such as rebar. Obsolete scrap, such as shredded, is heavily used in rebar production.

Scrap supplies, primarily those of the prime scrap used to make coil, are expected to be squeezed in the years ahead as the world installs more and more EAFs. That’s because the EAF route relies primarily on scrap as opposed to the blast furnaces and coking coal batteries that power traditional integrated steelmaking.

By Michael Cowden, Michael@SteelMarketUpdate.com