A selection of News in Briefs from around the globe

Nucor breaks ground in Louisiana DRI project

Nucor Corporation has broken ground on its direct reduced iron (DRI) making facility in St James Parish, South East Louisiana, USA.

The company received its air permit from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality in January after meeting all of the requisite standards. Issuance of the air permit allowed the company to begin the process of ordering equipment, and the company will now commence construction.

Initially, Nucor will build one DRI plant of 2.5M ston/y capacity, but has been permitted for the construction and operation of two plants with a combined DRI production of 5.5M stons/y.

Ansteel Putian commissioning

The project broke ground in February 2010 and was scheduled for hot commissioning in March. 2011. The project, with a planned investment of RMB3.8bn ($578.9M), will have 1Mt/y CR capacity (of which 700kt/y is for CR coil and 300kt/y for HDG coil). Ansteel said the CR coil produced here would be mainly used in the home appliance sector.

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Aumund Middle East

German company Aumund Fordertechnik has opened a subsidiary in Dubai.

Under the name Aumund Middle East the new office will be headed up by Emil Catalina. He will be taking care of business with clients from the MENA region.

Catalina has many years of experience at his fingertips in the minerals arena and in the cement industry.

SGL Carbon results

The positive trend in graphite electrodes resulting from increased capacity use in the steel industry was partially offset by the sharp decline in the aluminium cathode business.

Sales in the steel and aluminium business area rose by 19% to €762.6M (2009: €641.6M). The increase in sales amounted to 15%.

Despite higher sales of graphite electrodes and cost savings of €8M, EBIT declined by 5.1% to €144.1M compared to €151.9M in 2009.

The decrease was due to higher raw materials costs that could not be offset by price increases, the weaker cathode business and start-up costs for commissioning a new production plant in Malaysia.