Steel

From Field to Steel

Driving through Blytheville, no one would imagine that land is used for anything other than growing cotton. But there among acres of fine cotton fields—the very heart of cotton country, in fact—is the some of the most sophisticated steel-producing in the United States. Nucor Steel owns and operates two large mills, recycling scrap metal and manufacturing steel beams and sheet steel. Nucor is not only the largest recycler in the world, but they make Mississippi County, Arkansas the largest steel-producing county in the nation.

Nucor-Yamato Steel Company was formed in 1987 as a partnership between Nucor Corporation and Yamato Kogyo Company Ltd. with the goal of operating a steel mini-mill to manufacture wide-flange beams in Blytheville. Today, Nucor-Yamato Steel Company has the capacity to produce over 2.5 million tons per year of not only wide-flange beams, but also H-piling, sheet piling, standard I-beams, channels and various other structural shapes.  Nucor Hickman, opened in 1992, has been producing some of the world’s finest hot-rolled, cold-rolled and coated steel sheet available.

The “hub of steel” brings many related industries to the Blytheville area. Steel processing companies, fabricators, and tubing manufacturers are drawn to the banks of the Mississippi River, where barges offer another transportation option, along with rail and trucking.

A giant in the agriculture world, a giant in the steel industry…In Blytheville it’s easy to go from field to steel.