steel

Wayne County has finalized a deal that will rid the city of Trenton of one of its worst eyesores - the long-vacant McLouth Steel plant.  

The buyer is Crown Enterprises, a Moroun family business.  The company will acquire the property for $4 million - the amount owed on unpaid property taxes after McLouth's last owner, Detroit Steel, went bankrupt.

Michigan State University economist Charles Ballard minced no words to describe his reaction to President Trump's announcement that he will impose new tariffs on foreign-made steel and aluminum.

"What this looks like to me is macho nationalism," says Ballard, "unhindered by any serious thought about the economic repercussions."

Ballard says the tariffs may help workers in the U.S. steel and aluminum industries.

"But for the overwhelming majority of Americans this will raise costs of things that we produce using steel and that we buy using steel and aluminum."

A project to redevelop an old steel mill south of Detroit is getting over $2 million in grants and loans from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

State officials say much of the money will go toward cleaning up the site of the former McLouth Steel plant in Gibraltar.

Citizen groups are suing the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality over an air permit it granted to a Dearborn steel plant.

Two months ago, the MDEQ issued the permit to the Severstal plant. It allowed the facility to continue polluting at levels that had previously been cited by the state.

ECORSE, Mich. (AP) -United States Steel Corp. says an explosion at a plant near Detroit has killed one worker, and operations have halted while an investigation begins. 

Company spokeswoman Courtney Boone said Sunday that the accident happened overnight at U.S. Steel Great Lakes Works in Ecorse. The plant is about 10 miles south-southwest of downtown Detroit.

If you’ve been following our coverage of iron mining in the region, this might interest you.  Cliffs Natural Resources, North America’s biggest iron ore supplier, is scrapping plans to build an iron nugget plant in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

A nugget is just a little clump of very pure iron.  Big deal?  Well, here’s why the new nugget technology matters … and why Cliffs spent years studying it in cooperation with Kobe Steel of Japan.

Remember, the iron-rich regions of Michigan and Minnesota:

1. provided the iron ore
2. that made the steel
3. that helped the industrial Midwest become the industrial Midwest.
   

DETROIT (AP) - The U.S. Energy Department says it has loaned $730 million to the North American arm of one of Russia's largest steel companies to modernize its Detroit-area plant.

The government and Severstal North America on Wednesday officially announced plans to upgrade and expand facilities in Dearborn that make steel for the auto industry. They say the project will employ around 2,500 construction workers and create 260 factory jobs.

The money comes from a $25 billion low-interest loan program created in 2007 to help car companies retool older factories to build green cars.

Severstal bought the Dearborn factory in 2004.

By Michael Puente, Changing Gears

All this week, Changing Gears has been looking at reinventing Pittsburgh. We recently heard how Detroit has borrowed some of its ideas. In its final report, they head to Gary to see if this smaller Steel Town can learn from its industrial mother, Pittsburgh. They found old habits are hard to break.

When I first got to Pittsburgh, I did something foolish.