Nucor Corporation announced today consolidated net earnings of $778.2 million, or $2.45 per diluted share, for the full year 2011, an increase of more than fivefold over net earnings of $134.1 million, or $0.42 per diluted share for the full year 2010. Nucor reported consolidated net earnings of $137.1 million, or $0.43 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with a net loss of $11.4 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2010 and net earnings of $181.5 million, or $0.57 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2011. 

Unsicherheiten bei der Rohstoffbeschaffung und steigende Preise lassen in Deutschland das Interesse an Recycling explosionsartig wachsen. Das zeigt die aktuelle Auswertung der IHK-Recyclingbörse. Bei dieser überbetrieblichen Onlinebörse können Unternehmen kostenlos verwertbare Abfälle und Produktionsrückstande anbieten beziehungsweise nachfragen. Wie der DIHK mitteilt, suchten 2011 rd. 88 000 Unternehmen in der Börse nach recycelfähigem Material – fast 35 % mehr als 2010. Die Zahl der Materialinserate stieg gegenüber dem Vorjahr sogar um rd. 38 % auf insgesamt knapp 490 Positionen.

Die Düsseldorfer Materialforscher Jörg Neugebauer und Dierk Raabe erhalten für ihr Projekt Smartmet (übersetzt: intelligente Metalle) rund drei Mill. € aus den Töpfen des Europäischen Forschungsrates ERC (übersetzt: European Research Council). Innerhalb dieser ERC-Förderung streben die Wissenschaftler des Max-Planck-Instituts für Eisenforschung (MPIE) eine systematische Entwicklung neuer intelligenter Metalllegierungen an, deren Eigenschaften auf winzigsten kristallinen Veränderungen
beruhen. Bei der Förderung ‚ERC Advanced Grant‘ handelt es sich um einen äußerst prestigeträchtigen Preis, der nur an exzellente Wissenschaftler mit innovativen Projektideen verliehen wird.

Nucor Corporation, North America's largest steel bar producer, is pleased to announce plans for the continued expansion of the special bar quality (SBQ) production capabilities over the next two years.  Nucor has approved $290 million for projects to be completed at the Memphis, Tennessee, Norfolk, Nebraska and Darlington, South Carolina steel mills that will expand the SBQ and wire rod capacities by a combined one million tons.  These capital plans also include investments in state-of-the-art quality inspection capabilities necessary to ensure the highest qualities for the most demanding engineered bar applications.  Engineering studies have been finalized, and Nucor expects to complete each of the projects by the end of 2013 subject to federal, state and local regulatory and other approvals.

Tata Steel’s Tubes business in Europe has yesterday announced a recovery plan to match business operations to current and projected market demand in the foreseeable future. The plan will focus on efficiency improvements and cost reductions with the aim of enabling the business to withstand the current weak economic conditions and restoring its profitability. Four of the Company’s Tubes sites in the UK and the Netherlands will be affected. There are anticipated to be 110 job losses at Corby in the UK and, in the Netherlands, 17 in Zwijndrecht, 28 in Maastricht and 45 in Oosterhout.

World crude steel production reached 1,527 megatonnes (Mt) for the year of 2011. This is an increase of 6.8 % compared to 2010 and is a record for global crude steel production. All the major steel-producing countries apart from Japan and Spain showed growth in 2011. Growth was particularly robust in Turkey, South Korea and Italy.

Tata Steel has secured a major contract from Siemens Wind Power to supply 25 000 t of high-quality profiled steel plate for wind towers. The order – the largest to date for the steel company’s dedicated wind tower hub in Scunthorpe, England – is worth an eight figure £ sum and establishes Tata Steel as a key supplier to Siemens Wind Power.Tata Steel will deliver 25000 t of profiled plate (cut into the desired shape) between April and September this year. The steel will be used to build about 150 onshore wind turbine towers. Tata Steel has already supplied Siemens Wind Power with 6 000 t of steel plate for similar developments in the UK and Europe.

Red Bud Industries is proud to introduce our new fully automated CNC programmable slitting head. This highly advanced auto slitter can be used with both the multi-blanking and slitting lines.  The slitting head is fully automated and will completely set itself up without any operator intervention in less than two minutes.  In addition, the new design can support up to ten cuts at .250” (6.3 mm). With this system, the operator simply enters the part or strip width and the material specifications into the line’s computer and the auto slitter will do the rest.

The next SteelOrbis & IREPAS Conference will be held in the Hilton On Park Lane Hotel in London on April 1-3, 2012. The conference will again be the essential gathering point for the top executives in the global markets for long steel products.
With a participant list of 300+ plus steel executives at each conference, the SteelOrbis & IREPAS Conferences offer attendees the opportunity to hear presentations on various markets from expert professionals.

Tenova Re Energy, the company part of Tenova network, which
specializes in engineering and construction of heat recovery systems, has signed a contract with Feralpi Siderurgica to supply an EAF iRecovery system for its German plant Elbe Stahlwerke Feralpi GmbH, Riesa, Germany.

Der Präsident der Wirtschaftsvereinigung Stahl, Hans Jürgen Kerkhoff, bezeichnete die Branche als „Basisindustrie für das deutsche Wachstumsmodell“: „Ohne eine innovative Stahlindustrie können die komplexen Wertschöpfungsketten der modernen Industrieproduktion nicht funktionieren.“ Für die Herstellung von Windrädern und hocheffizienten Turbinen zur Energieerzeugung sei Stahl ebenso unverzichtbar wie für den wirtschaftlichen Leichtbau von Autos oder neue Elektromotoren. Die Energiewende braucht eine wettbewerbsstarke Industrie – auch im Hinblick auf dieses Projekt verbieten sich Differenzierungen der Branchen nach Gewinnern und Verlierern. Die Herausforderungen lassen sich nur in einer Anstrengung aller Partner der Wertschöpfungskette bewältigen.

Preliminary figures released by the International Stainless Steel Forum (ISSF) show that worldwide stainless steel crude steel production increased by 3.6% in the first nine months of 2011 compared to the corresponding period of 2010. Total production for the first three quarters of 2011 was an accumulated 24.2 million metric t (mmt). Production reached 7.7 mmt in the third quarter – a new all-time-high for a third quarter. However, there are big differences in the performance of the individual regions.

With Isis.India 2012, the focus of the International Surface Inspection Summit will yet again be on the Asian market after the event was hosted in China in 2010. Tema Technologie Marketing AG is organizing the conference, which will take place in Mumbai, India on 6 and 7 March, 2012. The event addresses current developments in surface inspection for steel and nonferrous metal, with a special look at the large markets in India and throughout Asia. Reports from research will also illustrate where the future development is headed.

Posco has secured the full-order for the rolled steel required for the construction of Lotte World Tower. With 123 floors planned for above-ground, and six below, Lotte World Tower, to be built in Jamsil, Seoul, is to be the world`s second tallest building, behind UAE`s Burj Khalifa. The construction is planned to be completed by 2015, using 40 000 t of rolled steel including regular and thermo mechanical control processed (TMCP) steel.

On Friday, 6th January, Eurofer filed an anti-subsidy complaint providing overwhelming evidence that the surges in EU steel imports of Chinese organic coated sheet (OCS) are the result of massive subsidisation. The anti-subsidy complaint complements the anti-dumping investigation on the same product initiated by the Commission end-December 2011 following Eurofer’s complaint. The anti-subsidy complaint exposes the extent to which China has a wide range of specific government support programmes covering all aspects of the steel and OCS industry including capacity investment, production, sales and exports of the product concerned (preferential loans and interest rates, equity programmes, income and other tax arrangements, grants, provision of goods for less than adequate remuneration,…).