Five open-hearth furnaces still are inside the plant's facilities. Since ironmaking stopped, workers slowly have dismantled both the blast furnace and open hearths for the EAFs' feedstock. Today, two 60-ton Whiting EAFs melt scrap. David J. Joseph Co. blends Lone Star's scrap on-site. No. 1 bundles and 40-percent No. 2 bundles and revert scrap.
Most scrap arrives by truck from urban areas in Texas.
But they serve our needs to produce small quantities for our specialty-tube business. The EAFs now produce 30 heats per day, compared with 24 heats previously. With the original system, called the Immaculator, a turbine rapidly spun the EAF dust. Heavier particles fell out of the dust to be collected separately. Federal and state air-quality regulations require the plant to recover particles that are smaller than what the Immaculator can remove, so Lone Star installed the bag house.