Arkansas’ Green Steel Meets a ‘Golden Share’
This story originally appeared in Arkansas Business. Read it here.
Dave Stickler, a godfather of environmentally sustainable steel, summed up his industry’s history in Arkansas earlier this month.
His bottom line? Modern, ecological steelmaking is economical steelmaking.
Stickler, former CEO of Big River Steel in Osceola, is back in town with Hybar Steel, which is now producing rebar less than two years after its founding.
The billion-dollar plant boasts the largest behind-the-meter solar and battery station in the United States. And within a few weeks, Stickler expects to be using 100% renewable power to crank out tons of steel.
“When the sun is shining and we’re running full out on our solar panels, a green light in our operating plant will show all the workers and me that we’re operating with 100% renewable power,” Stickler said.
“So I can put a green sticker on that rebar to tell customers that the steel was made using 100% renewable power. No ifs, ands or buts.”
The solar array — 186,000 panels on nearly 400 acres — is backed up with a 160-megawatt battery storage system. That will store solar power to keep the plant’s furnace and caster working at night and on cloudy days.
Big River uses solar power, too, but the array that supplies it, Driver Solar, is owned by Entergy Arkansas and isn’t behind the meter.
Nevertheless, Stickler is proud of Big River’s commitment to sustainability. “We became the world’s first steel mill certified by LEED [Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design], and we’re going to be LEED-certified at Hybar as well.”
Big River’s energy efficiency and cutting-edge design made it hugely attractive to U.S. Steel, which bought a 49.9% stake for $700 million in 2019 and exercised its right to acquire the rest of it with a $774 million installment in January 2021.
Big River’s industry-leading efficiency, in turn, helped lure Nippon Steel of Japan to seek acquisition of U.S. Steel in a deal that President Donald Trump approved, with strings attached, earlier this month. Nippon agreed to give the president a “golden share,” with veto power on major company decisions, according to The New York Times.
Stickler called Nippon “one of the most technically advanced, most forward-thinking, highest-quality steel producers in the world.” He expects Nippon to help Big River grow, and to invest in U.S. Steel’s older mills in Indiana and Pennsylvania. “It’s a great deal for everybody involved,” Stickler said.
“My whole career, I’ve been a free trader,” he said. That said, he noted that foreign governments subsidize, or even fully own, their countries’ steel mills. Foreign steel eventually flooded the U.S. market. “Foreign-produced steel doesn’t really hurt new, highly efficient low-cost steel plants. But it hurts higher-marginal-cost steel producers, people using 90- or 100-year-old mills.”
Stickler doesn’t think tariffs will significantly benefit Hybar, but he doesn’t object to some field leveling.
He sees nothing but bigger things for steel in Mississippi County.
“For 30 years, Arkansas has had two very competitive steel mills,” Stickler said, naming Nucor Hickman, owned by Nucor of Charlotte, North Carolina, and Nucor Yamato, a joint venture with Yamato Corp. of Japan.
“Then about 10 years ago Big River Steel came along, and then Big River Steel 2, and now Hybar,” he continued. “Withing the last 10 years, that’s over $8 billion of investment in about a 5-square-mile area of northeast Arkansas. And the nice thing is that $8 billion was done without any government handouts. We didn’t need handouts; we had plenty of private investors.”