Steel mill

A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product, but may also describe plants where steel semi-finished casting products (blooms, ingots, slabs, billets) are made, from molten pig iron or from scrap. A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product, but may also describe plants where steel semi-finished casting products (blooms, ingots, slabs, billets) are made, from molten pig iron or from scrap. Since the invention of the Bessemer process, steel mills have replaced ironworks, based on puddling or fining methods. New ways to produce steel appeared later: from scrap melted in an electric arc furnace and, more recently, from direct reduced iron processes. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the world's largest steel mill was the Barrow Hematite Steel Company steelworks located in Barrow-in-Furness, United Kingdom. Today, the world's largest steel mill is in Gwangyang, South Korea.