INTERVIEW: Nippon Steel to Pick New U.S. Steel Plant Site in 2026

Tokyo, Dec. 2 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s Nippon Steel Corp. hopes to narrow down a list of candidate sites by next summer and make a final decision by the end of 2026 on a location for its United States Steel Corp. subsidiary to build a plant in the U.S. market, Takahiro Mori, vice chairman of the Japanese maker, said in a recent interview. Nippon Steel, which acquired U.S Steel in June, plans to set up two electric furnaces that mainly use scrap iron as raw material, investing 4 billion dollars. The two electric furnaces at the new plant are expected to have a combined annual capacity of some 3 million tons of crude steel. Referring to criteria for picking the plant site, Mori cited factors such as land, electricity, and railroad and road networks as well as human resources and policies to be taken to host the plant. “Various states have shown their interest” after Nippon Steel explained its demands to them, he said. To narrow down the candidate site list, Nippon Steel also plans to consider such conditions as steel demand in neighboring areas and the ease of procuring materials. In November, the company revised down to zero the annual contribution of U.S. Steel to its earnings for the business year through next March from 80 billion yen, announced in August, reflecting falling demand in North America due to high tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. The Japanese firm had initially set a target of increasing the revenue contribution to 250 billion yen by fiscal 2028. “We have not changed the target as earnings will definitely improve as long as investments are carried out,” Mori said. Steel demand is expected to increase for data centers and power generation and transmission facilities if the use of artificial intelligence continues to spread rapidly. The vice chairman indicated plans to expand the production of grain-oriented electrical steel sheets for electrical transformers. While an AI bubble economy has been suggested, “significant investments are currently being made, and we will proceed based on our belief in them,” Mori said. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]