Letter to the Editor: ‘Made in America’ in global steel industry?

Nov 10, 2009 | 08:05 AM |

To the Editor:

The Letter to the Editor in the Nov. 5 issue ("Creative Data Massage Doesn't Erase the Facts") caused me to scratch my head to try to understand whether the author was against "fuzzy" data or the international ownership of California Steel Industries Inc. (CSI) and the larger question of "Made in America."

The steel business is one of the most world-intensive industries there is. Iron ore moves from country to country, as does coal, coke, pig iron, scrap, zinc and other metals used to make steel, be it here in the United States or in China, Europe or elsewhere.

Fontana, Calif.-based CSI is indeed one of the larger U.S. importers of slab, but by no means is it the only mill in the United States that imports slab, hot band or full hard cold-rolled in order to process steel to the end product requested by their North American customer base. West Coast flat-rolled mills all import material because there is no fully integrated mill (blast furnace) or mini-mill (electric furnace) located on the West Coast that can feed the flat-rolled mills in that region. There are EFs on the West Coast for long products, but not for flat-rolled.....