Purdue University Northwest's new national steel consortium is going to come up with ideas and innovations that could help make the beleaguered domestic steel industry more competitive.
The Center for Innovation through Visualization & Innovation has teamed up with steelmakers, including ArcelorMittal and U.S. Steel Corp., and major suppliers, like Praxair and NIPSCO, to form the research consortium, which is based out of Purdue's Hammond campus.
Founding Director Chenn Zhou and a panel of consortium members told the Lakeshore Chamber on Thursday at Dynasty Banquets in Hammond how the Steel Manufacturing Simulation and Visualization Consortium would help the industry, such as by tackling projects that would make it more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly.
"It's been over a century since the great steel mills were built here, and they probably reached their peak in 1978, when they employed 70,000 people," said Don Babcock, NIPSCO's director of economic development. "We still make 20 to 25 percent of the nation's best steel. But we all recognize the industry is under assault internationally. They want to eat our lunch. We have to do everything we can to maintain this phenomenal business and industry."
Steel remains strong in Northwest Indiana, which has three large integrated mills, more than anywhere else in the United States, said Kelly Dallas, a prinicipal engineer with ArcelorMittal USA who was a chairperson for the Association for Iron and Steel Technology Midwest Chapter. The Region is close to rail lines that bring in steelmaking inputs, population centers that consume the finished steel, and — perhaps most importantly — the iron ore that's shipped down from Minnesota across the Great Lakes to fuel the blast furnaces.
Northwest Indiana's steel industry however has been struggling of late after a record surge of imports and wave after wave of layoffs. It supports many other companies such as NIPSCO since the mills consume so much power and Praxair, an industrial gas supplier that owes about 75 percent of its business in Northwest Indiana to the steel industry, said Mitch Day, Praxair strategic account director.
"What if the steel industry disappeared tomorrow," Day said. "We'd be affected."
Babcock estimates Northwest Indiana would suffer at least a $2 billion blow if the mills were to close.
"That's why we have to ensure it's as sustainable and viable as it possibly can be," he said.
David White, ArcelorMittal USA director of process research, said the consortium could help the steel industry move forward in directions it's headed in, such as to burn natural gas instead of coke to make iron and to have more continuous operating in finishing. Steel coil likely will be rolled, heat-treated and finished in other ways while on the same line, instead of through separate processes, he said.
"It's true we're competitors, and we're not going to exchange product secrets or recipes or things like that," he said. "But there are issues that are common to us all, like safety, energy efficiency and reducing the environmental footprint, that would benefit everybody."
Day said it's necessary to make strategic investments in making the steel industry more efficient and competitive because suppliers benefit when it does well.
"This is the next chapter in the evolution of the steel industry," he said. "We've investing $80 million in an expansion of our facility at Burns Harbor. We expect steel will be here for the next 100 years."