The Story

TMS International completed financing for the acquisition and construction of a slag processing operation near Osceola, Arkansas on the campus of Big River Steel (BRS), a new $1.7 billion LEED-certified steel advanced flex mill that recently began operation.

The project will annually process about 200,000 tons of material and provide essential slag removal, metal recovery and maintenance services to BRS. After the slag has cooled at the TMS BRS processing site, cranes sweep the raw material with magnets to separate large pieces of metal from the slag. About 30,000 tons annually at the BRS site is ferrous. The scrap is then further processed and transported back to the melt shop. The clean, sized scrap is recycled as part of the scrap charge. The remaining material is fed into magnetic separation and screening systems which recover valuable, residual metallics for internal mill consumption and converts the slag into marketable aggregate products. TMS’ pioneering technologies process the slag into useful environmentally beneficial products. The slag will be sold and used in local infrastructure projects, such as road construction. Other applications for the slag include asphalt, ready-mix concrete, cement, railway ballast, mining filtration and agriculture.

The Financing

• Total Project Cost: $35 million
• MuniStrategies Allocation: $10.0 million (other NMTC allocation – $25 million)

The Impacts

• Economic: The project will annually process 200,000 tons of material. Approximately 15% of that material (30,000 tons) is ferrous and will be processed for metal recovery as a green source material for BRS. The balance of nonferrous material (slag) will be used for roadways and other aggregate applications, which are in high demand. Local provision of those materials will reduce costs and energy related to transporting them from non-local sources.
• Jobs: 20 new quality jobs will be created and an additional 30 jobs will be retained. The vast majority of employees live within 20 miles of the plant.  Current wages for operators is $25/hour and mechanics at $28/hour.
• Community: Since it began construction in 2014, BRS has had the support of all levels of government in the State of Arkansas and is the state’s largest commercial investment in its history, creating more than 11,000 indirect jobs in the Mississippi/Arkansas Delta region. Arkansas, the City of Osceola and Mississippi County have provided numerous economic incentives and various other forms of development support to bolster its catalytic industrial development in one of the most impoverished areas of the Mississippi River Delta.
• Workforce Development: TMS has made a $150,000 annual commitment or $1.05 million over the 7-year period in critical workforce training/development. All employees spend the first 40 hours in safety training which is then followed by a minimum of 80 hours in equipment training. The mechanics will attend 80-120 hours annually of vendor-sponsored training.

In the News

Big River Steel begins full-time production