Electric furnace steelmaker Steel Dynamics Inc. will spend $27.5 million to construct a new 240,000 ton/year coil-coating plant in Butler, Ind., to paint hot-rolled, cold-rolled and galvanized sheet.

Service center conglomerate Samuel, Son & Co. of Mississauga, Ontario, has purchased the Renown Steel flat-rolled service center in Scarborough, Ontario, from Canadian steelmaker Slater Steel Inc. Also, steel processor Cold Metal Products of Youngstown, Ohio, and Samuel, Son & Co. have agreed to an alliance for the processing and distribution of cold-rolled strip steel. The Hamilton, Ontario, plant of Cold Metal Products will become a joint processing plant while Samuel while idle its Samuel-Whittar operation in Detroit. Samuel, Son & Co. also has bought Turner Steel and Stamping Technologies of Hermitage, Pa., which will reopen as Samuel Stamping Technologies, a processor of stainless steel and aluminum coil.

Olin Corp. of Norwalk, Conn., has completed the purchase of Chase Brass of Montpelier, Ohio, a leading manufacturer of brass rod. Olin already is the leading North American producer of copper and copper-based alloys (through its Olin Brass operations), sporting ammunition, chlorine and caustic soda.

Inco Ltd. of Toronto has reached agreement with the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Inuit and Innu nations of native Americans on a $1.9 billion, 30-year deal to develop the Voisey's Bay nickel-copper-cobalt deposit in northern Labrador on Canada's Atlantic coast. Inco is expected to start preliminary work at the rugged and isolated site this summer. The mine, which is expected to start in 2006, will produce 50,000 metric tons of nickel annually (the equivalent of 5.5% of 2002 world output) as well as copper and cobalt by-products.

Charter Manufacturing Inc. of Mequon, Wis., is breathing some life into the former American Steel & Wire Corp. plant in Cuyahoga Heights, Ohio, where a relatively new $110 million steel bar mill-that has been standing idle since last summer-will reopen in August as Charter Steel-Cleveland. The 650,000 ton/year bar mill will make special bar quality (SBQ) grades but Charter Steel doesn't plan to run a rod mill at the site. That's because the firm make steel rod at a plant in Saukville, Wis.

Vallourec & Mannesmann Tubes and Sumitomo have bought the high-quality seamless steel tubing business of North Star Steel Co. (now V&M Star), which manufactures tubing for the gas and petroleum industry at plants in Ohio and Texas.

Worthington Industries is buying the Unimast subsidiary of WHX Corp. for $95 million. Unimast is a $230 million (2001 sales) manufacturer of construction steel products including light gauge steel framing, plastering steel and trim accessories, serving the construction industry from 10 locations. Its revenues last year were approximately. Unimast will be included in Worthington Industries' Dietrich Metal Framing business segment.

Japan's NKK Corp. and Kawasaki Steel Corp. will develop, along with German steel giant ThyssenKrupp, a next-generation automotive steel plate that is to be supplied to Japanese and European automakers starting this October. The three firms will develop a high-tensile and corrosion-resistant carbon steel plate that facilitates processing because of special surface treatments during production.

Polish Steel Sales of Washington, D.C., is operating as North American sales representative for Polish steel mill Huta Buczek, which produces welded structural tubing in various shapes, welded aluminized steel tubing, welded and seamless high-alloy steel tubing for pipeline, chemical and engineering applications and cast iron and composite rolls.

Sharon Tube Co. is adding a new electric resistance weld mill in Niles, Ohio, capable of producing redraw hollows for large outside diameters and heavier walls of steel tubing. The $9.5 million project will incorporate the latest production technology including inline nondestructive testing. The new mill will be operational by next March.

Canadian miners Kinross Gold Corp., Echo Bay Mines Ltd. and TVX Gold Inc. are merging in a $1.7 billion deal to create the world's seventh-biggest gold producer with an estimated gold production of 2 million ounces a year, just behind rival Canadian gold producer Placer Dome, which is set to produce about 2.5 million ounces this year.

Edgcomb Metals, subsidiary of Macsteel Service Centers USA, has acquired the Jersey City, N.J., service center of Baldwin Steel, subsidiary of Duferco Steel. The Jersey City steel service center processes and distributes sheet steel.

Huron Steel of Detroit now is an operating branch of Marmon/Keystone Corp., operating as M/K Huron Steel. Huron Steel, a distributor of cold-finished carbon and steel alloy bar, had been operating as a subsidiary of Marmon/Keystone since 1998. The conversion to branch status will enable M/K Huron Steel to share in Marmon/Keystone's computerized inventory systems.