CHIPS

By Staff -- Purchasing, 3/8/2001

Nucor-Yamato Steel and Voest-Alpine Schienen may build a rail mill in North America. The proposed mill will produce high-quality head-hardened rails in weld-free lengths up to 320 feet. Voest-Alpine Schienen is the rail-making unit of Voest Alpine Stahl, Austria's largest steel producer. Beam-maker Nucor-Yamato Steel is owned by steelmakers Nucor and Yamato Kogyo of Japan.

Alcoa Inc. will expand into the cast aluminum rod market by building a new production facility in 2001, located close to the main consumer markets in the southern part of the U.S. Ronee Hagen, president of Alcoa Engineered Products, says the facility will have the capability to produce cast rod in sizes tailored to forged and impact-extruded applications in the automotive, industrial and consumer markets.

California Steel Industries has dropped plans to build a new $500 million, 1.2 million ton/year flat-rolled steel mini-mill in the Pacific Northwest. Lourenco Goncalves, president of CSI, says there has been a regional shift in the supply of hot-rolled steel coils during the past two years that makes a new plant excessive. The Fontana, Calif., flat-rolled producer ships about 1.8 million tons from a hot-strip mill using slabs purchased from outside suppliers.

Quanex Corp. of Houston has purchased Temroc Metals, a $20 million (annual sales) aluminum extrusion and fabrication company based in Hamel, Minn. Temroc now is part of Quanex's Engineered Products Group, which uses specialized metal roll forming, polylaminating, stamping and laser-welding processes to produce custom-designed, value-added metal products. Engineered Products Group includes AMSCO in Rice Lake, Wis.; Homeshield Fabricated Products in Chatsworth, Ill.; and Imperial Products in Richmond, Ind.

Columbus Processing Co. in Ohio is revamping slitting lines to improve side trimming and surface inspection. Columbus Processing is a steel coil processing joint venture of LTV Steel and Bethlehem Steel.