- What it does
- Serves as the foundational base material for manufacturing, construction, and heavy industrial applications, providing a raw, unshaped metallic mass that downstream facilities forge, roll, extrude, or cast into finished components.
- How it flows
- Delivered as physical bulk goods such as ingots, billets, slabs, or blooms via rail, ship, or heavy trucking. It is physically consumed on factory floors by being melted, hammered, rolled, or machined into structural shapes and end-products.
- Summary
- Unformed steel, such as ingots, slabs, and billets, is cast at primary steel mills, stored in industrial yards, transported via heavy freight or rail, and received by downstream fabricators where it is melted, forged, or rolled into finished components.