SIC 3312 Steel Works, Blast Furnaces (Including Coke Ovens), and Rolling Mills

Encyclopedia of American Industries | 2005 | Copyright

SIC 3312
STEEL WORKS, BLAST FURNACES (INCLUDING COKE OVENS), AND ROLLING MILLS

This classification includes establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing hot metal, pig iron, and silvery pig iron from iron ore and iron and steel scrap; converting pig iron, scrap iron, and scrap steel into steel; and in hot-rolling iron and steel into basic shapes, such as plates, sheets, strips, rods, bars, and tubing. Merchant blast furnaces and by-product or beehive coke ovens are also included in this industry. Establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing ferrous and nonferrous additive alloys by electrometallurgical processes are classified in SIC 3313: Electrometallurgical Products, Except Steel.

NAICS Code(s)

324199 (All Other Petroleum and Coal Products Manufacturing)

331111 (Iron and Steel Mills)

Industry Snapshot

The first steel mill in North America was built in the 1600s, making the industry one of the oldest in the country. During much of the twentieth century the steel industry served as the measure of the U.S. economy. In 2001, U.S. steel companies employed about 127,359 people and shipped more than 88 million metric tons of steel. Despite its impressive size, the steel industry began declining in the mid-1970s and suffered a devastating depression between 1982 and 1986. After peaking in 1978 at over 137 million tons, U.S. steel production slipped to less than 90 million tons in 1991. Anemic market growth, expensive labor, increased production costs, and stagnant prices pummeled many manufacturers in the industry. In addition, the proliferation of foreign competition and the popularity of substitute materials, such as plastics and aluminum, gouged industry profits.

In response to a more competitive environment, the U.S. steel industry continued to restructure itself in the late 1980s and early 1990s. By 1993, new production techniques and facilities, as well as increased automation, had made U.S. steelmakers among the most productive in the world. From the low point in 1991, U.S. steelmakers steadily increased production during the 1990s, reaching peak levels in 1997 of 108.6 million tons produced and 105.9 million tons shipped. As productivity in the steel industry increased, the labor force declined to about 159,000 jobs in 1998, down from 171,000 in 1996.

Domestic steel production accounted for more than 12 percent of total world production annually from 1993 to 1998, reversing a downward trend from 26 percent in 1960 to less than 11 percent in 1991. Although U.S. steelmakers enjoyed strong domestic demand for steel in 1997 and 1998, especially from the automotive, construction, and industrial machinery and equipment production markets, they faced increasing competition from foreign steelmakers. There were record levels of imported steel in 1998, with U.S. steelmakers uniting to charge foreign producers with dumping steel into the U.S. market at below-market cost.

Despite the industry's successful reversal of its fortunes in the mid-1990s, the tides had turned again in the last years of the 1990s and the first years of the 2000s. Value of products shipped declined steadily, from nearly $57.0 billion in 1997 to $52.1 billion in 2000. Then the bottom fell out, and in 2001 total value of products shipped fell to just $44.1 billion, causing dozens of companies to file for bankruptcy. Import tariffs, imposed by the Bush Administration, along with consolidation within the industry led to a slight reprieve for the industry during 2002. However, serious questions remain regarding the long-term health of the steel industry in the United States.

Organization and Structure

Steel companies are involved in the manufacture of hot metal, pig iron, and silvery pig iron from iron ore, iron, and steel scrap. They are also involved in converting pig iron, scrap iron, and scrap steel into steel, as well as hot-rolling iron and steel into plates, sheets, strips, and bars. These end products are purchased by companies in other industries, which usually shape and manipulate the steel to create finished products.

Products offered by steelmakers are classified into five categories according to the manner in which they were processed and their chemical compositions. Carbon steels are used mostly for flat rolled products because of their high malleability. Machines, auto bodies, ships, and building structures are made with this type of steel. In fact, carbon steels accounted for about 54 percent of all U.S. steel production in the 1990s. Alloy steels, which made up about 10 percent of the market, integrate elements into steel to enhance its physical properties. Corrosion resistance, greater strength, and increased conductivity are a few of the advantages offered by some alloys.

In comparison to carbon and alloy steels, stainless steels are highly resistant to rust and may be stronger or offer resistance to temperature changes. Accounting for 4.7 percent of the steel market volume, stainless steel is often used in pipes, tanks, and in the medical field. Tool steels and high-strength low alloy (HSLA) steels accounted for less than 1 percent of industry production, combined. They are used in applications in which strength and weight are critical.

Integrated Manufacturers vs. Minimills. Steel manufacturers can be divided into two camps—traditional integrated mills and non-integrated "minimills." Integrated steel mills undertake every step of the steel making process. These facilities typically begin by converting mixtures of iron ore, limestone, and coke (made from coal) into molten iron using a blast furnace. Basic oxygen furnaces (BOFs) are next used to convert the molten iron into steel, which is then cast into ingots. Ingots are then shaped into slabs, billets, or blooms of steel.

Increasing numbers of integrated mills in the 1990s were using a process called continuous casting to bypass the production of ingots and cast billets, slabs, and blooms directly from molten iron. Compared to the old ingot teeming process, continuous casting is less complicated and yields a superior product. In this process, molten steel from a furnace is quickly carried in a ladle directly to a refractory lined container, or tundish, at the top of the...

Read all of SIC 3312 Steel Works, Blast Furnaces (Including at HighBeam Business

Related newspaper, magazine, and trade journal articles from HighBeam Research

(Including press releases, facts, information, and biographies)

	Euan Cameron. Waldenses. Rejections of Holy Church in Medieval Europe. Magazine article from: Utopian Studies ; Euan Cameron. Waldenses. Rejections of Holy Church in Medieval...solved (57ff. and 297ff.). The Waldenses took their name from a certain Valdesius...flock. Still more serious for the Waldenses was the existence of doctrinally heretical...
	Waldenses: Rejections of Holy Church in Medieval Europe.(Book Review) Magazine article from: Canadian Journal of History ; par Evan Cameron. Oxford, Blackwell Publishers, 2000. xi, 336 pp. $62.95 U.S. (couverture rigide), $28.95 U.S. (poche). si, depuis une trentaine d'annees, de nombreux travaux ont ete consacres aux vaudois, aucun n'avait, jusqu'a present, pretendu offrir, du moins en anglais, une vue d'ensemble de
	Fortification Newspaper article from: Scotland on Sunday ; ...whole region was once a refuge to the Waldenses, followers of a 12th-century merchant...him with troops. For centuries, the Waldenses were persecuted, with the result that...Ecrins are gradually shrinking, so the Waldenses' refuge was steadily eroded. The little...
	Waldensian Immigration to Algeria and the Impact on Indigenous Moslems from 1880 to 1920. Magazine article from: Michigan Academician ; ...contemporary to my ancestors. [1] Waldenses who were deported from France to Algeria...The thesis of this paper is that the Waldenses immigrants to Algeria, deprived of civil...right to vote in Algeria reminded the Waldenses of their own past. BACKGROUND OF THE...
	Q&A-ITALY: HEAD OF ISLAMIC NGO CALLS FOR INTERRELIGIOUS TALKS. News Wire article from: Interpress Service ; ...Western Muslims who can represent a pioneer example of what has already happened -- with the first Jews, the first Catholic, Waldenses and orthodox Christians -- showing how it is possible, with patience and intelligence, to build a new intercultural religious...
	FROM THE CHEROKEE TO BLACKBEARD, N.C. OUTDOOR DRAMAS SET FOR 2006 News Wire article from: US Fed News Service, Including US State News ; ...Tuesday). (252) 583-2261. "From This Day Forward," Old Colony Players, P.O. Box 112, Valdese 28690. Story of the Waldenses, a religious sect that arose in southeast France in the 1100s, their struggle to survive persecution in their homeland and...
	Q&A-ITALY: HEAD OF ISLAMIC NGO CALLS FOR INTERRELIGIOUS TALKS News Wire article from: Inter Press Service English News Wire ; ...Western Muslims who can represent a pioneer example of what has already happened -- with the first Jews, the first Catholic, Waldenses and orthodox Christians -- showing how it is possible, with patience and intelligence, to build a new intercultural religious...
	So Great a Light, So Great a Smoke: The Beguin Heretics of Languedoc.(Book review) Magazine article from: Church History ; ...the religious history of the European Middle Ages. Overshadowed by crusade-inspiring Cathars, and more evanescent than Waldenses, Beguins--Franciscan tertiaries, lay adherents of the order's Spiritual wing--have attracted scholarly interest...
	State to offer 21 outdoor dramas in 2007. Newspaper article from: High Point Enterprise (High Point, NC) ; ...without a trace. -- "From This Day Forward," in Valdese, July 6-Aug. 11, Fridays and Saturdays. It tells of the Waldenses, a religious sect that arose in southeast France in the 1100s, struggled to survive persecution in their homeland and journeyed...
	Union Theological Seminary to Inaugurate Henry Luce III Professorship in Reformation Church History. News Wire article from: Ascribe Higher Education News Service ; ...scholarly publications, conferences, and broadcasts, Cameron is the author or editor of several books. His most recent is, "Waldenses: Rejections of Holy Church in Medieval Europe" (Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 2000). One of his earliest books, The...