(The Center Square) — Japanese-owned Nippon Steel said Thursday it will invest $1 billion to extend the life of a processing plant near Pittsburgh.
Mon Valley Works in West Mifflin rolls 2.9 million net tons of steel slabs for use in appliances, automotive products, metal building and home construction, according to U.S. Steel.
In an Aug. 29 news release, Nippon said it will upgrade the facility’s hot strip mill, which will boost capacity and product offerings and “secure American steel supply.”
The promised investment hinges on the company’s unfinalized $14.9 billion acquisition of Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel, first announced in 2023.
The impending sale looms amid pushback from elected officials in Pennsylvania and beyond, including President Joe Biden – though he’s stopped short of thwarting the deal.
The United Steel Workers Union – representing 850,000 workers across the country, including some from Nippon – backs the White House’s opposition, calling for U.S. Steel to remain a domestically-owned and operated company.
In a statement to TribLive on Thursday, the union said “Nippon talks a big game, but at the end of the day, a press release is not a contract. Even as it pays lip service to one of the union’s ongoing concerns, Nippon continues to duck the USW’s input.”
The bold sentiment reflects the cultural significance of steel production in Pennsylvania and particularly Pittsburgh – the historical center of the industry in the United States at the turn of the 20th century.
It was at that time that famed business tycoons Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and Charles Schwab merged operations to become U.S. Steel, the largest producer in the nation.
The company eventually diversified its offerings as the steel industry slid into decline in the 1970s.
An economic impact study from the Pennsylvania Economy League found that, in 2024, the state’s $33.1 billion steel industry employs nearly 31,000 workers in iron and steel mills and ferroalloy manufacturing.
The state Senate’s ranking Republican, President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, issued a more optimistic statement Friday in which she invoked Labor Day’s honoring of “hardworking laborers.”
“Nippon’s pledge to honor the current union contracts along with their willingness to make the necessary upgrades to the Mon Valley Works facility demonstrates a commitment to future generations of Pennsylvania laborers,” she said.
Ward praised the company’s investments in “cutting edge infrastructure” that will “jump-start innovation and secure jobs for our region to grow and compete, but will also generate critical construction jobs for the building trades which will help create certainty for all.”
“With grace and grit, many southwestern Pennsylvania families built this country and our state alongside U.S. Steel and we will continue to do all we can to maintain its presence where it belongs – the Steel City,” she added.
Nippon will spend another $300,000 upgrading a plant in Gary Works in Indiana. The company also touted its economically friendly technology that will reduce emissions and materialize carbon capture and storage.
The latter holds the interest of state lawmakers, who have been working toward a deal that builds a regulatory framework for the future industry.
