Bob Tribble worked for U.S. Steel’s Gary Works facility for 31 years. One of his responsibilities was working in the blast furnace #14 baghouse.
Tribble is “indifferent” about the impending blast furnace reline at Gary Works, but he’d like to see more moves by the corporation to cleaner steel technologies.
“I don’t think the timing was right for them to make any other big plans, so I think they had to go and reline it to get the iron out that they need,” Tribble said. “But I think in conjunction with that, I think they could’ve gone in a different direction and bolstered their long-term goals.”
Tribble hoped that the blast furnace reline and investment from Japanese-based Nippon Steel would allow for more opportunities for direct reduction and electric arc furnaces at Gary Works.
“I think it’d be good for the economy and good for Northwest Indiana if they put direct reduction in,” Tribble said. “I think it would drastically reduce the amount of emissions and pollutants that’s emitted from Gary Works.”
On Wednesday, U.S. Steel announced a $1.9 billion investment to build a new direct reduced iron facility at Big River Steel Works in Osceola, Arkansas. Northwest Indiana green steel advocates weren’t surprised by the development, and they’re worried about what it means for the future of Gary Works.
“We have to make investments in the future to make cleaner steel, and it needs to be done no matter where we’re making steel, but my hope is that they would invest in Gary,” Tribble said. “We employ a lot of people, and we’re a very integral part of Northwest Indiana.”
According to a Wednesday U.S. Steel news release, the investment will leverage a 2022 investment into direct reduced-grade pellet capabilities at its Minnesota Ore Operations Keetac plant. The move creates a direct link between the corporation’s mining operations, electric arc furnace feedstock creation and steel production at Big River Steel Works.
The investment eliminates the need to ship direct reduced iron to the facility, where a more than $3 billion Big River 2 expansion is in full production and there are four electric arc furnaces. It also builds a competitive sourcing advantage for Big River’s feedstock, according to the news release.
“From iron ore in Minnesota to steel production in Arkansas, this $1.9 billion investment strengthens our ability to create steel that is truly mined, melted, made in America, from start to finish,” U.S. Steel President and CEO David Burritt said in a statement. “By vertically integrating (direct reduced iron) production directly at Big River Steel Works, we enhance efficiency, secure our competitive advantage, and position U.S. Steel for long term success. Our partnership with Nippon Steel helped accelerate this investment years sooner than would have otherwise been possible.”
Northwest Indiana clean steel advocates worry that Gary Works will be left behind. Jack Weinberg, green steel policy advisor for Gary Advocates for Responsible Development, wrote a 40-page report that claims the future of the region’s steelmaking is in jeopardy and says modernization would benefit the steel facilities and public health regionwide.
The report predicted that U.S. Steel would invest in direct reduction in Arkansas, Weinberg said. However, advocates are outraged to see U.S. Steel make this move somewhere else, he added.
Weinberg and other GARD members want to have a “respectable conversation” with Nippon and U.S. Steel officials about the desire for direct reduction at Gary Works.
“We think that if the mill doesn’t do this, it will be shut down by the 2040’s, and they’ll be stuck with either billions of dollars in remediation costs or shaking away and sticking it to Gary and sticking it to Northwest Indiana,” Weinberg said. “These are serious issues.”
Lisa Vallee, organizing director for Just Transition Northwest Indiana, is worried that U.S. Steel is going to invest more in southern facilities, and it will have grim consequences for other locations.
“The industry that built much of the country up here in Northwest Indiana is being left behind,” Vallee said, “even though we have the workforce, the infrastructure and the culture here. We just need Nippon to invest in the future of steel in Gary.”
If new technology doesn’t come to Northwest Indiana, Vallee believes Gary Works’ infrastructure will become obsolete.
“They’ll keep putting Band-Aids on issues until it has become irrelevant, even when there’s the opportunity for investment in infrastructure changes,” Vallee said. “They could start transitioning some of the smaller blast furnaces to use DRI to start the transition so we can continue to produce steel here and keep those jobs here.”
Vallee believes that local environmental advocates need to join together to fight for green steel regionally. The technology could change people’s lives, Vallee said, and it could decrease emissions in Northwest Indiana.
“Green steel is the perfect example of what a just transition could be,” Vallee said. “It is necessary for our growth as a country, as people and especially as a region.”
A U.S. Steel spokesperson responded to advocates’ concerns in a Friday statement.
“Through our partnership with Nippon Steel, U.S. Steel is committed to investing billions in improvements for Gary Works,” the statement said. “The improvements to the Gary Works facility, including the Hot Strip Mill and steel shop improvements, are about making the steel we already produce cleaner, more efficient, and higher quality for generations to come. The investments will update equipment, allowing for new products to be created and enabling us to support our communities while protecting thousands of good-paying jobs, keeping the plant competitive and able to provide generational job security.”
According to the Association for Iron and Steel Technology, direct reduction creates sponge iron, which “is produced in a reactor by direct reduction of iron ore in solid form, utilizing natural gas as the reducing agent to produce pellets or briquettes.”
Direct reduction by itself cannot make steel, the U.S. Steel statement said, adding that direct reduced iron is a feedstock used in electric arc furnaces that produce steel. Blast furnaces cannot consume direct reduced iron, and instead, steel mills need electric arc furnaces to process the iron.
“To use this technology at Gary Works, we would need to build an entirely new EAF-based steel shop from the ground up,” the U.S. Steel statement said.
Weinberg believes that U.S. Steel could install direct reduction and electric arc furnace technology sequentially at Gary Works, so the steel shop doesn’t need to be built from the ground up.
“The more important issue is — as we’ve been saying — there is more than one pathway to do this,” Weinberg said. “There are companies that are doing these things. There are problems that have to be overcome, but every single approach to steelmaking has problems to overcome.”
Blast furnaces use pig iron, which is created at Gary Works. U.S. Steel will receive a reline for Gary Works’ blast furnace #14 this month, which will cost $350 million and take 100 days, ending in August, according to previous information from the company. The reline is funded through Nippon Steel’s $3.1 billion investment into Gary Works.
“I think right now is the time that we need to get out in front of (U.S. Steel) before they invest in some other place,” Tribble said. “Then it’s too late, and they won’t even consider investing in Gary Works. I think there’s still time, and maybe they can rethink this.”
mwilkins@chicagotribune.com
