Keeping America Great; Steel Mills All Along The Gulf Coast -- July 22, 2019

Updates

Later, 7:59 p.m. CT: after posting the original post, a reader noted --

It is virtually impossible to overstate the impact of an abundant, cheap energy supply ... most particularly when referring to industrial (high consuming) end users.

When we, the public, regularly note the benefits of 2 buck/gallon gasoline, these industrial heavyweights are scanning regions with 5 and 6 cent per kilowatthour with which to do their thing.

With Henry Hub pricing looking to stay low for decades, the latest iteration of Combined Cycle Gas Plants springing up all over, the USA will continue to be THE place for business, especially heavy manufacturing.

As a sharp counter point, virtually the ENTIRE Green New Deal would have taken this country in the completely opposite direction.  

Comment: when I first started blogging back in 2007, I called the Bush II era a "lost decade." Many others subsequently said the same thing. I think most of us thought a second "lost decade" would be virtually impossible, but Barack Obama managed to pull it off. Clearly, the US is starting to make up for lost time.

For much of the past decade (yes, it's been that long) I've opined that the major energy hiccup for the US was Obama killing the Keystone XL. I'm not so sure any more. If the Keystone XL had gone in on time, it's very possible the Bakken, the Eagle Ford, and the Permian may have taken another direction. Not ready for prime time, but I am starting to question whether killing the Keystone might have worked out to our advantage. Something to think about. 

Original Post

I find this fascinating. It is simply staggering what is happening from Corpus Christi to Houston to New Orleans. 

Link here. Data points:

• US steelmaker Steel Dynamics (SDI) chose this site over a site in Louisiana
• 30 miles northwest of Corpus Christ
• electric arc furnace: almost $2 billion to build; operations should begin in mid-2021
• 3 million short tons/year of hot-rolled coil (HRC)
• will also have a galvanizing line with a capacity of 550,000 st/year
• will also have a paint line with a coating capacity of 250,000 st/year 
• Sinton, TX:
• SDI's seventh EAF-based steel mill; third flat-rolled facility
• joins Butler, IN, and Columbia, MS -- the latter facilities can produce 6.4 million st/year of HRC

First question: what are all these still mills in the deep south, and not up in Pennsylvania, New York, etc.

By the way, it was George Bush II that really got Texas rolling when he declared Texas open for business some years ago.

Much more at the link, including news of other steel mills being built in the US.