Free Trade Faltering

IBD Editorials ^ | 3 April 2007 | Staff

[Colorado Doug]

Please feel free to use outdated information if it helps to to distort the facts but as I said before, Mittal Steel of Rotterdam owns the remains of Bethlehem since they merged with ISG in 2005. Neither ISG or Mittle operates a steel plant in Bethlehem Pennsylvania. Regardless, it is not an American Company.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Bethlehem Steel owned plants in more than one location.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Overview Mittal Steel USA is the largest steel producer in the United States, formed from the combination of Mittal Steel’s existing US business, Ispat Inland, with the assets of International Steel Group.

Mittal Steel USA is a major supplier to the North American automotive industry as well as to the broader transportation sector, serving customers in the trucking, off-highway, agricultural-equipment, and railway industries. Mittal Steel USA also has a strong customer base in the appliance, office furniture, electrical motors, packaging, industrial machinery, and other manufacturing sectors, as well as the distribution and service-center industry.

Mittal Steel USA operates some of the most modern and efficient steel plants in North America. Major steel producing sites are located in East Chicago and Burns Harbor, Indiana; Cleveland, Ohio; Weirton, West Virginia; Sparrows Point, Maryland; Steelton, Pennsylvania; Georgetown, South Carolina; and Riverdale, Illinois. Value-added plate markets are served from the Company's Conshohocken and Coatesville, Pennsylvania, facilities, as well as from operations in Indiana. The company also has finishing facilities in Hennepin, Illinois, Lackawanna, New York, Newton, North Carolina, and Columbus, Ohio.

As part of its partnership with Nippon Steel Corporation, the Company also operates two state-of-the-art steel-finishing plants near New Carlisle, Indiana: I/N Tek, a continuous cold rolling plant that produces sheet steel of unmatched quality and consistency, and I/N Kote, a plant comprising both hot-dip and electrogalvanising lines for flat-rolled steel.

Mittal Steel also owns iron ore mines in Minnesota as well as coal properties in Pennsylvania and a direct-reduced-iron facility in Trinidad, and a coke-making facility in Warren, Ohio.

FYI, their three plants in Burns Harbor were owned by Bethlehem Steel.

[Colorado Doug]

Mittal Steel USA is the largest steel producer in the United States

What is your point Todd? All you managed to do is point out that the largest steel producer in the United States is not even an America company. Mittal and Nippon are both foreign companies that bought out American steel companies, including Bethlehem, that went bust from the steel dumping.

[Toddsterpatriot]

What is your point Todd?

You said in wartime, we wouldn't have enough domestic production. With no clue as to how much we use now for defense.

[Colorado Doug]

You said in wartime, we wouldn't have enough domestic production. With no clue as to how much we use now for defense.

Obviously, our (relative) peace time defense steel consumption has no bearing whatsoever on what consumption would be in an all out war.

[KevinDavis]

Also after WW2 most of the world was bombed... Kinda hard to make stuff with no factories...

[KevinDavis]

Also most factories nowadays are automated..

[Toddsterpatriot]

Obviously, our (relative) peace time defense steel consumption has no bearing whatsoever on what consumption would be in an all out war.

Great, take the current consumption and multiply by 10. By 20. By 50.

Do we make enough? How much do we need during wartime? You should back up your assertion with some hard numbers.