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本帖最后由 choi 于 6-19-2015 12:05 编辑
John W Miller, US Steel's Last Stand: Alabama; Steelmaker takes page from Nucor's playbook, as firms cope with flood of low-priced imports. Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2015.
www.wsj.com/articles/steel-firms ... -compete-1434574049
Quote:
"US Steel Corp.’s first electric arc furnace [EAF] in decades is a step toward replacing the iconic steelmaker’s stable of iron-ore-reliant blast furnaces with a more flexible scrap-based process that allows for stopping and starting production when there isn’t enough demand to keep churning out steel.
"Those methods [EAC] helped Charlotte[, North Carolina]-based Nucor ['the other big American steelmaker'] overtake US Steel last year to become America’s biggest steelmaker by production capacity.
"The two companies are the only U.S.-based steelmakers left in the top 50 global steel producers, a list now dominated by Chinese companies. * * * US steel companies, including US Steel and Nucor, this month [June 3] asked the government [United States International Trade Commission] for protective import tariffs on steel from China and four other countries [India, Italy, South Korea and Taiwan].
"US Steel has lost money in five of the last six years, while Nucor has been consistently profitable.
"The Nucor plant in Alabama produces roughly the same amount of steel as US Steel, 2.4 million tons, but employs about one-third as many workers. * * * The incentive-based salary structure [in Nucor] means worker salary can range from over $100,000 to less than half that.
"The history of Birmingham is intertwined with iron and steel. * * * The region is one of the few places on the planet where coal, iron and limestone are found together. * * * Birmingham made iron for the South during the Civil War
US Steel "Workers say they’ve started construction of the new electric arc furnace, which has a $230 million price tag, but haven’t yet been fully trained in how to operate one. 'We’re trying to find a facility with an EAF, but most of the EAF facilities are nonunion [particularly those of Nucor's], so they’ll let company officials visit but not us,' said union local president David Clark.
Note:
(a) Study the winner first.
(i) Nucor
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucor
(A) Section 1 History is actually well written. But I did not understand it, until I read the succinct history in the company's website. So go read (a)(ii) first.
(B) Here is my summary of section 1: Ransom E Olds (REO) founded Olds Motor Vehicle Co in 1897, which was sold to General motors as Oldsmobile car make (ie, brand). In 1905 REO established REO Motor Car Co (to make cars and trucks). Both of his companies were based in Lansing, Michigan. The latter was not profitable, whose activist shareholders in 1955 forced REO to take over a tiny nuclear services company called Nuclear Consultants, Inc. "Following the purchase, REO Motor Co emerged as 'Nuclear Corporation of America Inc' * * * Nuclear's attempt to recast itself as a nuclear industry services company was ultimately no more successful than REO had been."
(C) Wikipedia says in section 1: "Iverson and Siegel quickly reorganized Nuclear around its only profitable business, steel-fabricator Vulcraft. * * * Unable to get favorable prices from American steel manufacturers, and unhappy with the imported steel available at the time, Iverson (a metallurgist by training) decided to integrate Nuclear backwards into steel making"
hammering out products from steel, steel fabrication is downstream from steel-making.
(ii) Nucor.com
(A) In the top horizontal bar, click the tab "Chapter 2 History."
(B) Then move to "Chapter 3 Tech. Leadership."
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发表于 6-19-2015 11:55:55
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