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BOC Gases
BOC to Expand Gas Supply at Gerdau Ameristeel’s Knoxville Plant
Dec. 13, 2006
Dec. 13, 2006 — BOC Gases has signed a multi-year contract with Gerdau Ameristeel to construct an air separation unit to provide the mill with over 130 tons a day of gaseous oxygen and nitrogen at its Knoxville, Tenn., steel mill. The contract is valued at over $20 million.
BOC, which now supplies the Knoxville facility with liquefied oxygen and nitrogen, says the new capacity will support Gerdau’s plan to increase the mill’s long-term competitive position.
"Like Gerdau, BOC is focused on continual improvement,” said Arlan Piepho, Vice President and General Manager of Gerdau Knoxville. “BOC aligned its objectives with ours to identify and reach a common goal that improves our overall plant economics.”
The Knoxville mill recycles scrap metal to produce long products, such as rebar and plain rounds for customers. It is one of four Gerdau steel mills in the U.S. that BOC supplies under multi-year contracts.
Gerdau Ameristeel is a majority owned subsidiary of international steel producer Gerdau SA, which is based in Brazil. Gerdau Ameristeel is the second-largest minimill steel producer in North America with annual manufacturing capacity of over 8.4 million tons of mill finished steel products. The company’s products are generally sold to steel service centers, to fabricators, or directly to original equipment manufacturers for use in a variety of industries, including construction, cellular and electrical transmission, automotive, mining and equipment manufacturing.
The Linde Group is a world leading industrial gases and engineering company with more than 53,000 employees working in around 70 countries worldwide. Following its acquisition of The BOC Group the company has gases and engineering sales of approximately $15 billion. Linde Group’s strategy is geared towards earnings-based growth and focuses on the expansion of its international business with forward-looking products and services. The Linde Group supplies over $1.1 billion of gases each year to steel customers, or some 20 percent of the global steel industry’s total gases requirements.