Senator John Hickenlooper tours EVRAZ steel mill expansion in Pueblo
PUEBLO, Colo. (KRDO) -- The expansion project at the EVRAZ North America steel mill is around thirty percent complete, according to EVRAZ CEO Skip Herald. Thursday, they gave Senator John Hickenlooper a tour of their progress on the $500 million dollar project.
The steel mill now runs completely on solar energy. Once the expansion to the steel mill is complete, the mill will produce green steel, or clean, renewable steel. An initiative that drew high praise from Senator Hickenlooper.
"If you look globally about seven percent of all the carbon emissions come from the construction of steel. The mill is going to be the model to demonstrate that we can make a heavy industrial product like steel, like steel rail and do it without causing climate change," Senator Hickenlooper said.
The President and CEO of EVRAZ said the expansion will create the most modern rail mill in North America.
"The new rail that comes out, we describe it as green rail so it will come out with solar power of our electric furnace that powers all the mills and you have the greenest steel produced at least in North America and probably the world," Herald said.
Senator Hickenlooper was one of twenty two senators to team up and pass a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill in November. The bill will provide Colorado with $3.7 billion for repairs to roads and bridges.
"Almost a hundred million dollars just for am-track too so thats going to take a tremendous amount of rail. This is where they are going to make the most cost effective rail, the highest quality rail in the country if not the world," Hickenloop said.
Herald told KRDO the expansion project is expected to be complete by summer of 2023. The production of green steel will begin shortly after.
