Gerdau Fort Smith Mill
Large load · 5225 PLANTERS RD, Fort Smith, AR
Gerdau's Fort Smith mill, permitted as Gerdau MacSteel, is a special bar quality steel mill in Sebastian County, Arkansas. It melts scrap in two electric arc furnaces and rolls about 606,000 short tons a year of special bars, shapes and cold-finished bars. Its electric demand and supply contract are not public. Its dependence on automotive demand showed in March 2020, when the melt shop was idled for less than a week as US auto plants shut.
Overview
The Arkansas Title V permit describes a scrap steel recycling mill producing about 250 grades of alloy, carbon and resulfurized steel. Scrap and fluxes, along with iron carbide, direct reduced iron, hot briquetted iron and pig iron, are charged to one of two electric arc furnaces and melted by electric current, then refined in a ladle station. The permit renewal also allowed increased operation at the melt shop.
Profile
- Special bars, shapes and cold-finished bars
- Argus puts the mill's capacity at 606,000 short tons a year of electric arc furnace steel, with matching rolling capacity, making special bars, shapes and cold-finished bars. Gerdau runs it alongside two special steel mills in Jackson and Monroe, Michigan, whose combined melting capacity is 992,000 short tons a year.
- A brief 2020 idling
- Gerdau shut the Fort Smith melt shop in March 2020, along with its Jackson and Monroe mills in Michigan, when US auto plants closed for the coronavirus. It restarted melting and rolling at Fort Smith on March 28, 2020, less than a week later. A full stop of the melt shop takes the furnaces' load off the grid, so such idlings matter to the local utility.
Facility
- Activity
- Special bars, shapes and cold finished bars from an electric arc furnace mill
- Industry
- Manufacturing
- Site type
- Facility
- Operating status
- Operating
Related records
Timeline
- Mar 28, 2020
- Gerdau restarts melting and rolling at Fort Smith after a brief COVID-19 idling.
Gerdau resumes operations at Arkansas mill