Steel Dynamics announces quarter billion dollar expansion

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – In the last month, tariffs on steel have forced several companies across the country to layoff workers.

That seems to be quite the opposite here in the Golden Triangle.

Tuesday afternoon, Steel Dynamics announced it will bring 45 new jobs to the area.

Another expansion is on the way for Steel Dynamics in Columbus with a new galvanizing line, bringing jobs and growth to the Golden Triangle Economy.

“I think it says a lot about our workforce out there,” said LINK CEO, Joe Max Higgins. “It says a lot about the company that’s putting investment in there, but when you make steel more efficiently than anybody else you’re going to have business you’re going to do.”

The new galvanizing line will allow the Lowndes County campus to put protective coating on its steel products, about 400,000 tons of it a year.

The expansion brings 45 new jobs with it, and while it may not seem like a large number Higgins says the pay is anything but small.

“Our last numbers that we got, they’re in the ballpark of… Their average pay at the steel mill is in the six figures number,” Higgins said. “You know, you’ve got 45 jobs paying $100,000 a year.”

In total, the expansion itself will cost roughly $250 million.

Higgins also says the residual effect of this expansion can be beneficial to neighboring companies.

“As the mill increases its products that it makes, it gives more opportunity for the companies that are located with them on there to expand,” the LINK CEO said.

Higgins says this process will take around a year and a half to two years and the line should be up and running in mid-2020.