Mittal figured he could cut his raw-material costs in half by buying direct-reduced iron rather than scrap.

FORBES: Carnegie would be jealous

Three years later, he began trading scrap iron, investing income into buying shares of small metallurgy works in Ural.

FORBES: Nikolai Maximov & family

He looked through the kitchen window, but the yard was empty and all he could see, among the thistles and scrap iron, was a dilapidated cart with two rusty wheels.

NEWYORKER: Waiting

The local harbour, where barges bring the scrap-iron the factories will consume, has expanded from seven employees to more than 200 since 1987.

ECONOMIST: From cotton to steel

He'd get off the train at the city dumps, eat mulligan stew with the hoboes and forage for copper, brass and iron to sell as scrap.

FORBES: Artists in overalls

The company runs minimills, which produce steel from scrap rather than iron ore and manufacture products in smaller batches than traditional plants.

FORBES: Magazine Article

An even lower-cost group of domestic producers are the mini-mill operators, such as Nucor, which make steel from scrap metal instead of iron ore.

ECONOMIST: Steel: Rust never sleeps | The

Whoever bought the final stake had to have delivered 700, 000 tons of iron ore or 400 tons of scrap metal to Zaporizhstal within the last year.

FORBES: On My Mind