3. Mini-plants from industrialized countries

3.1 Historical development

This trend in the old industrial countries, i.e. Europe and North America, is in fact due to two quite different phenomena:

• the first is that the growth of large mills into a group with capacities soon reaching and exceeding one million tonnes has led to a shift away from the production of special steels, which has led to the persistence and even growth of mini-factories for special steels; these factories began to develop as soon as the electric...