McLouth Steel
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[edit] Overview
McLouth Steel is a former integrated steel mill that is located in Trenton, Michigan, and is currently idle. The company is looking for buyers willing to restart the plant. Around half of the plant remains, including the rolling mill. The company has seen a lot of interest in the plant, and is currently undergoing a minor environmental clean up. Detroit Steel Company currently owns the property. Detroit Steel also has notoriously bad electrical wiring, often tripping the circuit at Detroit Edison's Jefferson Substation, much to Detroit Steel's discomfort.
[edit] Detroit Complex
McLouth Steel was founded by Donald B. McLouth as a small conversion mill on Livernois Avenue in Detroit,MI. This plant was revamped to produce only stainless steel in its later years and was bought by Jones and Laughlin Steel Company in 1981.
[edit] The Trenton Complex
In 1948, McLouth Steel started its $100 million expansion program by purchasing riverfront property in Trenton, MI. Construction on the first major construction program was started soon afterward. The site was laid out and four sixty ton electric arc furnaces were installed. Soaking pits, a blooming mill, a reversing Steckel mill, coilers and finishing equipment were installed. McLouth was soon established as a growing factor in the marketplace.
A few years later in 1954, the Trenton Plant was dedicated and McLouth Steel became able to produce iron as an integrated steel mill. Number One blast furnace was constructed with a capacity of 1250 tons a day. The three original 60 ton basic oxygen furnace (BOF) vessels were installed and McLouth became the first plant in North America to make steel via the basic oxygen process. Adding to the melt shop were two 200 ton electric arc furnaces. The reversing Steckel mill was replaced by a six stand continuous 60 inch hot strip rolling mill and a roughing stand was added to compliment the blooming mill. More soaking pits were installed as well as a plant to supply the BOP with oxygen. Two pickle lines were also added along with the slitters.
1958 saw another major expansion of the plant. A new blast furnace was constructed (Number 2), two 110 ton BOP vessels, and the related support equipment for the BOP and blast furnaces also had their capacity increased. Gas cleaning systems were installed for the melt shop as well. Two Rust slab reheat furnaces were installed to handle stainless steel, as well as the massive grinder and slab unpilers. The grinders, unpilers, and the pusher/bumper units for the two furnaces were supplied by Composite Forgings, Inc.
Between 1960 and 1964 one more 110 ton BOP vessel were added bringing the 110 ton vessel count to three. McLouth also became the first company to use computer controls on a hot strip mill on November 1, 1962. Significantly, the first "straight stick" slab caster was installed during this period. It was the first in the United States.
Profitable operations as well as market demand prompted a major commitment to build a Continuous Casting Department in 1967 with the announcement of four curved mold continuous casting strands and six lines of three induction slab reheaters. Two additional 110 ton BOP vessels were also added to replace old and obsolete equipment (the 60 ton vessels). With these improvements to McLouth's steel making process, McLouth became the first steel mill to eventually produce 100% of its product by the continuous casting process, which added significantly to the efficiency of the operations and improved the quality of the finished product.
The plant was sold in 1996 to Detroit Steel Company.
[edit] Gibraltar Complex
1954 also brought the construction of a cold rolling facility in Gibraltar, Michigan, close to the Trenton Plant. This facility had a four stand continuous cold rolling strip mill, annealing furnaces, two skin pass finishing mills and other ancillary equipment for further processing of cold rolled steel coils.
The plant was sold to Detroit Cold Rolling (a subsidiary of Detroit Steel) in 1996 and was later sold to Warren Steel in 2006.
[edit] Trenton Plant Assets
[edit] Iron Making
- Two blast furnaces (Demolished in April 2004.)
- Sinter Plant
- Phased out in 1969. Only the first floor of original building remains. Very inefficient- it produced low grade ore from wastes from the blast furnaces.
- Three Ore Bridges
- Demolished on April 16, 2000. Bridges were cut in half with explosive charges, then fell in on themselves.
- One conventional ore yard opposite of the blast furnace, and two conveyor fed auxiliary yards.
[edit] Melt Shop
- Five Oxygen Process Vessels
- Three 60 ton vessels added in 1954, Two 110 ton vessels added in 1958, one more 110 ton vessel added between 1960-64, two more added in 1968, original three were demolished in 1968. Melt shop demolished in 2005.
- Two 200 ton Electric Arc Furnaces
- Added in 1954 to replace the four original 60 ton vessels. Demolished in 2005.
[edit] Caster
- Four Continuous Casting Strands
- Main building was demolished in 2006. The four underground strands are still intact, however they are flooded. Cutting tables, control rooms, and service cranes have severe flood damage.
[edit] Rolling Mill
- Eighteen Induction slab reheaters
- Constructed in 1968 as part of the concast expansion, grossly inefficient. Transformers and heaters were scrapped under DSC Ltd.
- Natural gas walking beam furnace Is largest single installation of its type in United states.
- Built in 1985. Still in fairly good condition.
- Blooming Mill
- Roughing Mill
- Six Stand 60inch Rolling mill
- Two downcoilers
[edit] Finish Departments
- Pickle Line
- Five Slitters
- Number 5 slitter remains.
[edit] Gibraltar Plant Assets
- Two slitters
- Two sheering lines
- Two skin pass mills
- One pickle line with a pickling tower
- One customer service line
- 250~ annealing bases
[edit] First Online Computer Control
Online computer control of steel making processes became a reality with the first use of computers on a hot strip mill in 1962. McLouth Steel used a General Electric 312 computer for gauge control on the finishing train of a semi-continuous mill. The aim was to set up the initial roll gap and then establish correct gauge as soon as the head end of the strip emerged onto the runout table. The finishing train started running under continuous computer control on November 1, 1962.
"Probably the most exciting application of the GE 312 was to the hot strip mill of McLouth Steel Co. in Michigan. It was a difficult design inasmuch as each step in the process had to be varied on the basis of the measured values of the previous step. This required continuous high speed feedback to set the six different hot stands with absolute accuracy and reliability being essential; an error at one point could be magnified at the next, causing an entire process to go out of control. Fortunately, the GE 312 met the challenge." H. Oldfield, General Manager of the GE Computer Department.
The Solid State circuitry of a GE 312 computer was composed of 2500 diodes, 2500 transistors, and 12,000 resistors, but no magnetic core memory. There were 20 binary digits per word or per instruction. All arithmetic was fixed point. Numbers were 19 bits plus the associated positive or negative sign, not a very big number range when expressed in decimal form, just -524,287 to +524,287. The GE 312 was designed by A. Spielberg of the GE Computer Department that was newly formed in 1957.[1]
[edit] First Continuous Caster
McLouth Steel was the first plant in North America to cast 100% of its steel by the continuous caster method.
In May of 1962, McLouth personnel visited the Dillingen Steel Works in Germany, where continuously cast slabs larger than 100 square inches were first cast. Some sixteen months later McLouth was operating a "straight stick" casting machine.
[edit] Pilot Plant
In 1963, a full size single strand, vertical casting machine was added to the original Oxygen Process Shop. The machine was operated for five years, helping to pioneer techniques that would be useful when the larger four strand shop was constructed in 1968. The pilot shop was operated mostly during the day, while the afternoon and midnight shifts would repair, modify, or tune the machine.
Initial slab sizes were 8" x 36", afterwards they began to cast bigger slabs by about 10" increments up too 10" x 52". There was a noted improvement in quality, as with the ability to cast using larger molds. The pilot plant was limited to about 50 "heats" (ladles of molten steel), from the original OP shop. Over the course of operation, the pilot plant casted a little over 300,000 tons of steel.
The five year run of the plant produced the opportunity to help develop both the equipment and casting techniques. Extensive work was performed on the design of the molds and the casting speed relative to the slab quality.
[edit] Casting Plant Description
Four single-strand curved mold casting machines casted around 3000 tons per day. Only two casting machines will normally cast at one time and many people questioned the need for four units. McLouth feels that the third caster is there for coordination reasons while the fourth is a reserve for maintenance shutdowns. Ladles are moved by overhead bridge cranes to the casting machines which can handle two at a time.
The record slab length for the plant was between May 9-11, 1972. The slab was 44" wide and 9,972 feet long, total weight was around 8,500 tons from 75 ladles. Strand two was used. [2]
[edit] First Use of Slab Induction Heating
McLouth Steel's decision to cast unusually thick slabs (12 inch) led them to reheat the slabs inductively. The whole setup was difficult to undertake, as well as uneconomical to use. The giant heaters resembled upside-down toasters, and made a loud buzzing sound when in operation.
The nature of the induction heating process is such that heat input to the slab is not restricted to the surface, but actually penetrates into the slab. The depth of penetration is determined by the frequency of the electrical power supply and the metallurgical makeup of the steel.
Although induction heating was well established as an effective and economical process for fulling many types of heating requirements, it had never been seriously considered for heating anything like the 12" thick by 60" wide by 26' long, 30 ton slabs McLouth wanted to produce. The fact that they wanted over 600 tons of steel per hour did nothing to help the situation.
Several induction heating companies were contacted to determine if they would be interested in a project of this magnitude. Just one company expressed interest. Ajax Magnethermic from Warren, Ohio. Ajax informed McLouth that they had a new coil design which would be capable of doing the job. After discussions, McLouth entered into a shared cost, joint development venture with the company to design, build, and test a prototype coil system.
Early in 1965, several small 12" thick slabs of rimmed steel were repetitively heated in a prototype 1,000 KW rectangular coil. the tests proved that cold 12" thick slabs could be heated to rolling temperature in less than one hour.
The next year, McLouth ordered 21 heaters (three spares) as part of a $105 million program which expanded the hot metal facilities, construct a four strand caster, and the induction heaters. Production capacity at the plant was raised from 1,800,00 tons a year to 2,400,000.
A full size computer system that automatically shuts off heaters if a limit is reached. This computer also switches heaters on or off as required to rebalance the phase loading and to remove the threat of a 120 KV line outage. Detroit Edison permitted McLouth a maximum phase imbalance of 43 MW's. This computer also provided printouts of hourly demands, alarms, engineering logs, as well as maintenance logs.
Overall, the system was a novel idea, but really only worked on paper. Auto transformer failures were frequent, as were bus connection failures. When all 18 heaters were running at full capacity, McLouth Steel was Michigan's second largest consumer of electricity(first was the city of Detroit). The environmental impact was very low due to a closed water cooling system and during non-operating hours, the heaters were shut off. [3]
[edit] The 1980's
The 1980's were very turbulent times for the company, however not everything was bad. There was one bankruptcy in 1981, and a new slab reheat furnace installation. There was a $70 million capital improvement program put into action in 1983. The company's assets were bought by Chicago industrialist Cyrus Tang in 1982, and he renamed the company McLouth Steel Products Corporation. Next there was a company restructuring, and another new name- McLouth Steel-An Employee Owned Company. An Employee Stock Ownership Plan was established, and it made majority ownership of McLouth go to the employees. In 1988, the No. 2 Blast Furnace underwent repairs and upgrades after being out of service for 5 years. The No. 2 was brought on line in January 1989. A year later the No. 1 Blast Furnace was shut down never to be restarted again.
[edit] The 1990's
McLouth then had a second bankruptcy in the 1995, and in mid-March word was given that the plants would be closed and McLouth would be out of business. Many employees did not and would not believe McLouth was going out of business until word was given of the layoffs and shut down. Shut down commenced immediately starting with the blast furnace and working through each of the departments until product was run out in each. Layoffs commenced immediately. In August 1996, the assets are sold off to Michael Wilkinson, who bought the buildings and assets for alledgedly $32 million of the now former McLouth Steel Corporation. He decided to rename the company Detroit Steel. Wilkinson then said he would pay the creditors from profits he’d make on the plants. Wilkinson had already turned around another plant in California (Kaiser Steel) that had a situation similar to McLouth. However, his plan didn’t materialize along with many other plans. “It is a very, very difficult business.” Wilkinson said, “If you don’t know what your selling price and cost and volume are going to be - if you miss even one of those - in any business, you're bankrupt."
Harry Lester, 77, is the ex-director of District 2 of the United Steelworkers of America. Lester worked as a railroad engineer at McLouth. “Every time I drive by there I get sick.” said Lester, who started his steel career at McLouth in 1954. “They’re selling the thing for scrap.” said Lester. “That mill was one of the most modern mills in the U.S.” Lester knows the mill like the back of his hand, because his union from 1988 to 1996 oversaw McLouth’s management as an employee-owned corporation. “That’s the biggest line of crap I’ve ever heard.” said Lester of Wilkinson’s claim that it would be extremely uneconomical to produce steel at McLouth. “They had two blast furnaces, and we put $15 million into one of them just before McLouth declared bankruptcy. This guy who bought McLouth had one thing on his mind–scrap it out. He waited for the scrap price to get right.” Wilkinson is aware of the criticism but says the steel business is uncompromising.
[edit] The 2000's
Then, things took a turn for the worst for McLouth supporters. Talks of redevelopment filled the air, and ex-employees began to think that McLouth was done for. Former Trenton Mayor Patricia Hartig began talking with loads of different redevelopers. McLouth was hurriedly gathering together any buyers who were going to restart the company. They found someone who would use an unused portion of land on-site. It was the Riverview-Trenton-Railroad (RTRR), which was owned by Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Mouroun. They wanted to handle McLouth’s steel in and out of the factory.
Trenton city council voted 5-2 over REI, a redeveloper, because the money wasn’t secured. City council then voted OK to redevelop after the money was finally secured. That little hesitation gave Wilkinson enough time to change his mind. Wilkinson had found a buyer. Boris Bannai, Israeli steel magnate had a plan. He owned a steel plant in Ohio, and he would ship steel from there to the Trenton plant, then to finishing at the Gibraltar plant.
Suddenly, Bannai bowed out of the deal. In an extremely unexpected turn of events, Bannai sued Michael Wilkinson and Detroit Steel Corp./Detroit Cold Rolling for $100 million in damages for breech of contract. The suit was filed Aug. 29 in Oakland County just before Wilkinson extended the purchase window by one week. All parties met Sept. 7 after the week extension collapsed and agreed to dismiss the lawsuit.“The Boris Bannai aspect of the deal is dead and we don’t expect it to be revived,” Wilkinson said.“We are talking with some other people, two different groups.” Wilkinson later said, “We want to have this done before we’re in the same situation with the taxes we were before. We’ve had so many false starts on this thing.”
After Bannai, McLouth was up for grabs once again. Wilkinson said REI would be a last resort, because he would like to see McLouth run again. Bannai’s bank Ukrainian Privat Bank was still interested, with or without Bannai. Wilkinson is also looking at buyers in Europe and Asia. McLouth once brought many jobs to Downriver, and it could happen once again. Mayor Gerald Brown said he would be happy either way, more jobs or more stores and marinas, but favors REI’s plan. Detroit Steel is at a crossroads-either find a steelmaker willing to restart the plant or redevelop.
[edit] Trenton Plant Fire
On June 14, 2007, the sedimentation pond near the Number Three Finishing and Shipping building caught fire, producing thick black smoke. The smoke could be seen for miles. There were no working fire hydrants near the plant (water has been cut off since September 2003), and four city fire departments were called in (Wyandotte, Rockwood, Woodhaven, and Riverview). Around 7 p.m., the fire burned down quite a bit. The Detroit Metropolitan Airport Fire Department arrived with its crash truck, which was equipped with 400 gallons of foam. The fire burned out on its own, but firefighters doused the pond just to be sure. The scene was cleared at about 10 p.m.
