“Automotive is not going to be the focus in West Virginia, not the majority of product shipments,” Laxton said last week at the Global Steel Dynamics Forum (GSDF) in New York, co-hosted by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology (AIST) and World Steel Dynamics (WSD).

“Well under half of the shipments out of West Virginia will be for automotive,” Laxton added. He said automotive now accounts for “about 7% of all the company’s steel shipments.”

That implies 1.3 million tons were shipped to automotive end customers in 2023, as Nucor shipped 18.6 million tons to outside customers that year. Nonetheless, even if one-third — 1 million tons per year — of Nucor West Virginia’s output ultimately goes to automotive, the new volume will effectively double the company’s total level of current shipments to the important market. 

Nucor, which is investing US$3.5 billion in the project, has said that, once operational, the new mill will produce 84-inch sheet products. The site at Apple Grove, W.Va., will feature a 76-inch tandem cold mill and two galvanizing lines capable of producing advanced high-end automotive and construction grades.

During his GSDF appearance, Laxton acknowledged that the West Virginia mill will complement Nucor’s other sheet mills, which mainly serve southern and western markets.

“We’re relatively underweighted in the Midwest and Northeast, so this mill’s geographic orientation is (mainly) Midwest,” Laxton said. In its 2023 annual report, Nucor noted that the new greenfield mill’s product mix is “anticipated to have a significantly lower GHG intensity than blast furnace-based competitors who have historically supplied the region.”

— This article is courtesy of World Steel Dynamics' USA Steel Dynamics news, pricing and forecasting service.