North American Stainless, Carrollton, Kentucky, USA, produced its first cast on 2 February. With the start-up of this facility, NAS has now achieved a fully integrated manufacturing process. Annual capacity for this facility is 800,000 tons (melt shop), 1,000,000 tons (hot rolling) and 300,000 tons (cold rolling). The Acerinox group has three factories with a fully integrated stainless steel manufacturing process: Campo de Gibraltar (Spain), Carrollton and Middelbourg (South Africa). Acerinox’s total capacity is 2.5 million tons, the equivalent of approximately 14% of world steel production in 2001.
