SDI’s Millett: Innovation Will Resolve Scrap Supply Issues

With significant EAF capacity coming online over the next few years, the talk of a tight scrap market creating problems for the EAF community has been an ongoing concern. But Mark Millet, president and CEO of Steel Dynamics Inc., is not overly concerned. He says innovation is the key to overcoming this potential obstacle.

Speaking at the Association for Iron and Steel Technology’s AISTech Town Hall Forum last week in Pittsburgh, Millett explained that the team at SDI’s Butler works in Indiana has reduced its prime scrap usage from 65-70% down to 40% over the past eight to nine months. If other EAF producers across the country were to do that as well, it would free up a reasonable amount of prime scrap, he said

America has a shred flow that is “almost limitless,” he said, and a massive reservoir of obsolete material that, if processed correctly, can reduce a lot of steelmakers’ prime scrap needs. Adding hot-briquetted iron (HBI) can do the same, Millett said.

“The technology has already been developed and will continue to be improved,” he said. “Innovation, creativity, ingenuity…these fix problems.”

Just this month, SDI acquired Mexican ferrous and nonferrous scrap recycler Roca Acero SA de CV in a move to bolster its scrap supply to its new Sinton, Texas, sheet mill. The $1.9 billion, three million tons per year facility was completed in the first quarter of this year.

By Laura Miller, Laura@SteelMarketUpdate.com