Georgia Agency Approves Air Permit for Proposed Steel Mill

The Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources has granted an air permit to Osceola Steel Co., which is looking to build a minimill in Adel, Ga. Approval of the permit came on Dec. 29, 2010, and followed a forum held earlier that month when the EPA fielded comments and listened to a presentation on the proposed steel minimill. The company initially applied for the air permit in April 2010.

According to documents submitted during the hearing, the Osceola Steel, founded in 2009, is looking to build a steel mill with the capacity of 430,000 tons per year. The end product would be primarily rebar and merchant bar, with the Georgia and Florida markets as targets for the steel. Raw material for the steel mill would be almost exclusively ferrous scrap metal. The location of the proposed steel mill is in an area zoned for heavy industry.

In its presentation to the EPD, Osceola Steel said it expects the investment at the site to be around $70 million, and at full capacity the mill would employee between 140-150 people.

The mill would include one electric arc furnace, two horizontal ladle preheaters, one vertical ladle heating stack, two tundish preheaters, one reheat furnace, two casting machine torches and three cooling towers. The facility would use ferrous scrap as its raw material.

In the public hearing, the company indicated that it hopes to start site construction, subject to the completion of venture financing, by March 2011 with start up by April 2012.

Eric Cornwell, manager of EPD’s Air Protection Branch's Stationary Source Permitting Program, says that the permit requires the company to break ground on the steel mill within 18 months.

The company will need to obtain a number of other permits before it can break ground on the operation.

Dennie Andrew, who is listed as a contact for Osceola Streel, says that the company is in the process of putting together its financing, which the company hopes to have complete by the middle of 2011.