TMS International completed financing for the acquisition and construction of a slag processing operation near Osceola, Arkansas on the campus of Big River Steel (BRS), a new $1.7 billion LEED-certified steel advanced flex mill that recently began operation.

The project will annually process about 200,000 tons of material and provide essential slag removal, metal recovery, and maintenance services to BRS. After the slag has cooled at the TMS BRS processing site, cranes sweep the raw material with magnets to separate large pieces of metal from the slag. About 30,000 tons annually at the BRS site is ferrous. The scrap is then further processed and transported back to the melt shop. The clean, sized scrap is recycled as part of the scrap charge. The remaining material is fed into magnetic separation and screening systems which recover valuable residual metallics for internal mill consumption and converts the slag into marketable aggregate products. TMS’ pioneering technologies process the slag into useful, environmentally beneficial products. The slag will be sold and used in local infrastructure projects, such as road construction. Other applications for the slag include asphalt, ready-mix concrete, cement, railway ballast, mining filtration, and agriculture.

The project annually processes 200,000 tons of material. Approximately 15% of that material (30,000 tons) is ferrous and will be processed for metal recovery as a green source material for BRS. The balance of nonferrous material (slag) will be used for roadways and other aggregate applications, which are in high demand.

Community: Since it began construction in 2014, BRS has had the support of all levels of Arkansas government and is the state’s largest commercial investment in its history, creating more than 11,000 indirect jobs in the Delta.