Although integrated mills can help build and run galvanizing, tin-plating, or processing lines, it's not as clear where they have an edge or what they should focus on. They've got to avoid taking too much of a scattershot approach to foreign markets. Nucor is considering building a thin-slab minimill in Brazil in a joint venture with Companhia Siderurgica Nacional. Mexico's Hylsa also is providing technical assistance to companies using CSP casters. There can be enormous changes in currencies, politics, labor, and technology.
Foreign ventures can have substantial political risks.
China's Minmetal, or MMI, the central-government agency in charge of metals trading, overturns local decisions for political reasons. The Chinese government has favored German firms because of deals with the German government. Some key government officials in China, India, and elsewhere expect bribes, even though they're illegal. Oregon Steel pulled out of a DRI project in Venezuela because of the unstable political climate and because the state-owned gas and ore companies began jacking up prices. The nonautomotive OEM markets are just as important as automotive.