Severstal North America ramps up specialty products

Staff -- Purchasing, 10/7/2004

Severstal North America in Dearborn, Mich. (what used to be Rouge Steel) soon will be receiving hot-rolled sheet in coils of interstitial free (IF) steel from parent Severstal in Russia—as part of the company's efforts to develop, commercialize and expand its IF steel deliveries to domestic and foreign markets.

V.V. Rahuba, project manager, says the 480-ton trial lot will be rerolled and galvanized at Severstal North America. Then the Severstal-rolled product will be shipped to Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn and to a Kenwal Steel service center, also in Dearborn.

Parent Severstal shipped 17,700 tons of IF steel products in the first quarter of 2004, and 24,000 tons are planned for the second quarter. In comparison, 21,300 tons were shipped in all of 2003. The current major consumers of flat-rolled IF steel are European service centers in Russia, Spain, Italy, France and Germany that service automotive and home appliance manufacturers. The rolled product also is exported to Belarus, Uzbekistan, India, South Korea, China, Turkey and Mexico.