CMC reports permit approval in West Virginia

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has granted Commercial Metals Co. (CMC) a permit that will allow it to start construction on its fourth electric arc furnace (EAF) micro mill facility.

Late last year, CMC selected Berkeley County, West Virginia, as the location of the scrap-fed steel rebar production facility.

The selection bookended the state's year as a growing steelmaking destination after Nucor Corp. announced in January 2022 it intended to build an EAF mill in Mason County, West Virginia.

“Receiving this permit is an important milestone in our Steel West Virginia micro mill project,” CMC Chair and CEO Barbara Smith says. “With the permit in hand, and land purchase completed, we can now begin construction to achieve our targeted commissioning date in calendar 2025.”

Smith, who became CEO in 2017, announced her pending retirement earlier this month. As CEO she has helped oversee the expansion of CMC’s micromill steelmaking capacity.

In addition to the West Virginia facility, CMC, which is based in Irving, Texas, announced in 2020 its intent to build a second micro mill adjacent to its first one in Mesa, Arizona. In 2018, the firm broke ground on a micromill in Durant, Oklahoma.

CMC, in addition to making recycled-content steel at 10 EAF mills, also operates several dozen metal recycling facilities, one rerolling mill, steel fabrication and processing plants, ground and soil stabilization products and construction-related product warehouses in the United States, also operates a steel mill in Poland.