Nucor Steel Arkansas (Hickman)
Large load · 7301 E CO RD 142, Blytheville, AR
Nucor Steel Arkansas is an electric arc furnace flat-rolled sheet mill near Hickman, in Mississippi County, Arkansas. It opened in 1992, can make about 2.65 million tons of hot-rolled sheet a year, and has since added a specialty cold mill, a galvanizing line and paint capacity. It takes power from Mississippi County Electric Cooperative, which buys wholesale from Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation (AECC). Its service has long been interruptible with a buy-through option, and no current site-level MW figure has been published.
Overview
Nucor Steel Arkansas and the neighbouring Nucor-Yamato beam mill both take service from Mississippi County Electric Cooperative (MCECI), a member of AECC. In a 1998 filing the two mills said that together they drew over 400 megawatts of demand, about 20% of AECC's system demand and 29% of its energy sales; that figure is combined, so no separate MW figure is recorded here for the Hickman mill. The mills said low-cost, reliable power was a principal reason Nucor located in Mississippi County.
Profile
- Interruptible service
- Nucor has intervened repeatedly in AECC's rate cases at the Arkansas Public Service Commission, chiefly over the size of AECC's Interruptible Credit. Its service agreements with MCECI and AECC were amended in the 1990s to add a buy-through, letting the mills buy replacement energy instead of curtailing. In AECC's 2012 rate case the Commission set the Interruptible Credit at 52% of the firm demand charge and ordered MCECI and two other co-ops to revise their large industrial rate schedules to match.
- Expansions
- Nucor announced a $230 million specialty cold mill complex in 2016 for advanced high-strength and motor lamination steels, followed by a $240 million galvanizing line of about 500,000 tons a year that was due to start in 2021, and in 2020 agreed to buy the nearby Precoat Metals paint line in Armorel. Mississippi County economic developers put Nucor's investment since 2018 at about $750 million.
Facility
- Activity
- EAF sheet mill: hot-rolled, cold-rolled, galvanized, galvannealed and painted sheet steel
- Industry
- Manufacturing
- Site type
- Facility
- Operating status
- Operating
- Demand flexibility
- Interruptible service with a buy-through provision under the mill's service agreements with MCECI and AECC; MCECI's large industrial rate tracks AECC's Interruptible Credit (IC) Rider
Related records
Timeline
- Jan 1, 1992
- Hickman sheet mill opens
apps.apsc.arkansas.gov
- Sep 20, 2016
- Nucor announces a $230 million specialty cold mill complex
Nucor to Build Specialty Cold Mill Complex at its Arkansas Sheet Mill
- Oct 28, 2020
- Nucor agrees to buy the Precoat Metals paint line in Armorel; galvanizing line under construction for 2021
Nucor Enters Agreement to Purchase Paint Line Facility in Arkansas