Indiana Harbor Works Steel Plant, Indiana

Indiana Harbor, east of Chicago, is the largest steel complex in the USA, with the capacity to produce around 9.5 million tons of steel per year. Historically it was two separate plants, now known as the East Works, and the West Works. The East Works was established by Inland Steel in 1901. By 1961 it had over 20,000 workers. The newer and smaller West Works was founded in 1923 by the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, which became part of LTV Steel in 1984. Mittal, an India-based international steel company, has owned both since 2004. Mittal and the European steel company Arcelor merged in 2006, to become ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel company. The facility possesses five blast furnaces, six oxygen furnaces, assorted casting machines, hot strip mills, pickling, galvanizing, and aluminizing lines, a temper mill, in addition to the equipment required for various types of annealing. The plant produces a variety of flat products, including high strength steels, API pipe skelp, hot-dipped galvanized and aluminized sheets, and in particular, those steel products used by the automobile industry. This is one of three large steel complexes along the lake shore, which together produce more than 22 million tons of steel a year, 25% of the total produced nationwide. This is also the largest heavy industry area in the nation.