Severstal Columbus: About

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FAQ’s About Severstal Columbus

What is Severstal Columbus?

Severstal Columbus is part of Severstal OAO, one of the largest steel producers in the world. Our mission is to operate a state-of-the-art steel mill in the southern United States where demand for high-quality steels has grown rapidly in recent years.

Where is the Severstal Columbus steel plant located?

The plant is located in the northeast corner of Mississippi near Columbus and Starkville. The 1400-acre plant site has room for a planned expansion that could double capacity, as well as sites for partner companies and downstream manufacturers. The site was selected after an exhaustive search of available sites within a 12-state area that had sufficient land, access to major road and rail transportation and enough electricity available to power a steel plant with the potential to melt, pour and form more than 50,000 tons of steel every week.

Why is the Severstal plant located in the South?

Because that’s where the demand for steel is strongest. This is especially true of automotive-grade steels; Existing nearby auto plants include: Nissan in Canton, Mississippi, Hyundai in Montgomery, Alabama, Honda in Lincoln, Alabama, and Mercedes in Vance, Alabama. In addition, Toyota is building a new facility in Tupelo, Mississippi, and a truck plant in San Antonio, Texas; Isuzu is constructing a plant in Pinson, Alabama. Mexico represents another growing market for wide, high-quality, flat rolled products for automotive and agricultural applications. There is a direct rail link from the Columbus plant with Monterrey without any switching to intermediate railroads.

What is the Severstal Columbus plant producing?

Severstal Columbus has the unique ability to respond to a very wide range of customer and marketplace needs. Our output is primarily dedicated to various types of steel for three major markets:

Thin steel for drawing applications in the automotive and appliance industries (including lawn & garden).
Stamping steel for automotive, lawn & garden and light manufacturing applications.
Exterior and roofing steel for the building and agriculture industries (including HVAC).

Severstal Columbus can also serve specialized industries such as electrical steels and steel stock for pipe & tube. For a deeper look at our product mix, click on the Products Tab.

Why is Severstal Columbus considered a “next generation” steel mill?

Today’s rapidly-changing steel industry requires a new approach with unprecedented ways of doing business. Severstal Columbus accomplishes this in several ways, including:

Our ability to produce steels that heretofore were only available from integrated mills -- a major step forward in mini-mill technology.
Our site can host partner companies that process and manage steel deliveries to end users, an unprecedented partnership between mills and service centers.
Our integration with other Severstal steel producing plants, which gives us the breadth, capacity and expertise to seamlessly meet virtually any customer need.

How much steel will be produced in the new mill?

The nominal capacity of the steel production equipment being installed is approximately 1.5 million tons of steel per year. The anticipated output is broken into four types of steel:

Hot Roll (250,000 tons/year)
Hot Roll Pickled & Oiled (250,000 tons/year)
Cold Roll (600,000 tons/year)
Coated Steel (400,000 tons/year)

Severstal Columbus has already begun an expansion project designed to double output to 3 million tons per year; for more information, visit the Construction Update [LINK: NEW] tab in the About section.

What are the raw materials for the plant?

The mill is a vast recycler of ferrous scrap gathered from around the globe, melting and re-forming more than a million tons of scrap a year. Most of the scrap arrives by barge on the Tennessee-Tombigbee channel, a few miles from the plant. In order to create steels for exposed automotive applications, Severstal Columbus mixes selected scrap with raw pig iron, Hot Briquetted Iron (HBI) , Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) and factory bundles of scrap from automotive stamping plants.

How does the Severstal Columbus plant output reach manufacturers in the South?

The Severstal Columbus plant site is served by a short line railroad that connects to four of North America’s major rail lines: Kansas City Southern, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Norfolk Southern and CSX. In addition, the plant has easy truck access to Interstates 10, 20, 40, 55, 65 and 75.

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