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Ohio Regulators Grant ACERO Junction Conditional Power Discount

Steel mill in Germany.

If ACERO Junction hires a minimum of 270 workers at salaries of at least $81,481 per year, the steelmaker will get $26.2 million worth of electricity discounts.

As President Donald Trump’s plan to impose 25 percent tariffs on most steel imports moves forward, the conditions may be right for Upper Ohio Valley steel production again.

This week, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio approved the company’s request for lower American Electric Power bills for the next six years. Commission spokesman Matt Schilling said the affect on other ratepayers is uncertain because there are so many variables involved.

“It is possible they will see no increase,” said Schilling of other AEP customers throughout Ohio. “There are just too many factors at play to say for sure, at this point.”

ACERO Junction purchased the 80-inch rolling mill and electric arc furnace at Mingo Junction from Frontier Industrial in December 2016. The Mingo facility is the largest of the former Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel plants. However, workers have not produced any substantial quantities of steel at the plant since its 2009 idling while under the ownership of OAO Severstal.

Because of a sequence of mergers and acquisitions, a company known as RG Steel controlled the plant by 2011. After that firm’s 2012 bankruptcy, Buffalo, N.Y.-based Frontier purchased the Mingo facility — including the electric arc furnace furnace which was installed in 2004 at a cost of $115 million– for $20 million. Frontier since has demolished most of the northern part of the former plant, which did not include the furnace.

In March, officials with JSW Steel, India’s largest exporter of steel with a presence in 100 countries, announced they would purchase ACERO Junction for $80.85 million.

The agreement with the PUCO also calls for ACERO to make a minimum investment of $60 million in its facilities within one year of resuming steelmaking. The electricity discount is supposed to run through May 31, 2024.

Several years ago, the PUCO had a similar arrangement to allow the former Ormet Corp. to buy discounted electricity to run its aluminum smelter at Hannibal. In 2013, immediately after the PUCO ended this plan, Ormet filed for bankruptcy and closed.

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