The partnership that paid $1.55 billion for ThyssenKrupp AG’s steel rolling mill in Calvert gave the facility a new name at an employee-only reception in early March.
The world’s most modern steel finishing facility will be known as AM/NS Calvert, its workers learned first-hand from Lakshmi Mittal, chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal, who flew in for the occasion.
Sharing the platform was Shoji Muneoka, chairman and CEO of Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp., which partnered with ArcelorMittal to make the purchase.
“The name is AM/NS Calvert. AM and NS need no explanation. And we chose Calvert because we wanted all of you to feel an ownership and engagement with the name. This is your plant, and Calvert is your town. And red and white I know is the color of the Alabama flag, ” Mittal said, according to a company release.
“I hope that all of you gathering here today, and people from ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal, will work together as a team, to grasp firm trust from important customers, especially automotive manufacturers in southern areas of the U.S., ” Muneoka told the gathering.
The facility boasts a total capacity of 5.3 million tons and features state-of-the-art hot rolling, cold rolling, coating and finishing lines.
Chris Richards, president of AM/NS Calvert, will be responsible for plant operations. Since 2006, Richards has served as president of I/N Tek & I/N Kote, ArcelorMittal and NSSMC’s joint venture in New Carlisle, Ind.
ThyssenKrupp spent $5 billion building the two-mill complex in Calvert — the carbon steel rolling mill just purchased for $1.55 billion and a companion stainless steel mill that was sold in 2012 for $3.6 billion to Finnish-based Outokumpu Oyj.
Text by Dave Helms
