HUGER — Nucor Corp. has broken ground on a $425 million galvanizing line at its Berkeley County mill as part of the steel giant's plan to boost its market share for the high-grade sheet metal used in automobiles and household appliances.
The addition will put a zinc coating on the finished product to protect against corrosion, provide more durability and extend the lifespan.
It also will give the Charlotte-based company additional capacity for a grade of metal that's in growing demand. The global market for galvanized steel is expected to top $104 billion this year, with annual growth of 5.9 percent through 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights.
Nucor Corp. plans to add a $425 million galvanizing line at its Berkeley County steel mill (above) that will add 50 jobs. A groundbreaking for the project, expected to be completed in 2025, was held Thursday. File/Provided
"We continue to provide our sheet customers with the highest-quality, most-advanced products," Mike Lee, the plant's general manager, said at a May 2 groundbreaking event. "This will move us into higher-value products for important markets like automotive and durable goods and help us improve our market share."
Nucor has spent more than $1.3 billion in Huger since 1995, when the company announced it picked Berkeley County for a new $500 million investment.
The mill, which melts and recycles scrap steel rather than making it from scratch, opened the following year and generates about $2 billion a year in revenue, the company said. The latest expansion will add about 50 jobs to the local workforce of nearly 1,000.
"The hard work of the Berkeley team has encouraged us to keep reinvesting in this facility," said Rex Query, executive vice president of sheet products for Nucor and a onetime controller at the Huger mill.
The new line, first announced in 2022, is part of a $5 billion plan to add new galvanizing capacity at Nucor's six existing U.S. mills and another under construction in Point Pleasant, W.Va.
"When this phase of growth is completed, we will have more than 6 million tons of galvanized capacity in the United States, and it's going to broaden our mix of high-margin, high-value-added products for Nucor," Query said.
He added the new products will also meet customers' demands for greener manufacturing because "we are one of the cleanest steelmakers in the world," with a process that produces one-third of the carbon emissions of traditional blast furnaces.
"We are well positioned to produce the low-carbon steel more of our customers want," he said.
Locally, the new line will produce 500,000 tons of coated steel per year once it is completed in mid-2025. It will join an existing galvanizing line that has been upgraded in recent years to produce sheet metal for the construction, automotive and appliance industries.
All told, the plant along Cooper River has annual capacity to produce 3.5 million tons of flat-rolled steel used for car parts, water heaters, lawnmowers, appliances and hundreds of other products. The site also makes steel beams used in the construction industry.
The new line will be built by Sumter-based Thompson Construction Group, which has collaborated with Nucor on numerous projects in previous years.
The S.C. Coordinating Council for Economic Development, a part of the state's Commerce Department, has approved a $400,000 grant to help pay for the project’s costs, and Berkeley County has approved tax breaks for Nucor.
State-owned electric-and-water utility Santee Cooper, which provides power to the Nucor plant, also will provide a grant to help pay for upgrades at the site.
