President Trump’s ambitious plan to expand the U.S. Navy from 275 to 350 ships could be very good news for ArcelorMittal’s steel-plate plants in Coatesville and Conshohocken, writes Joseph N. DiStefano for Philly.com.

The Coatesville plant’s furnaces can produce carbon-steel and alloy-steel plates, steel-clad rolls and customize flame-cut shapes. Its plate steel is specially designed for use in nuclear-reactor containment vessels. The plants steel slabs are also an integral part of landmark buildings such as New York’s Freedom Tower and Philadelphia’s Cira and Comcast towers.

ArcelorMittal purchased the Coatesville and Conshohocken plants from Lukens Steel in the late 2000s in a deal backed by billionaire investor, Wilbur Ross.

However, earlier this year, Ross left the board of ArcelorMittal to join the Trump administration as Secretary of Commerce. This gives him an ideal opportunity to help support the steel industry.

[uam_ad id=”51712″]

Advertisement 

Currently, the Coatesville plant employs 770 people, while Conshohocken has around 290. These numbers tend to fluctuate depending on the number and size of orders.

According to, Mike Nichols, a Drexel University graduate, the Navy’s “entire fleet of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers” along with its fleet of submarines, “contain steel from Coatesville, from the first-ever USS Langley, to the USS Enterprise which is currently under construction.”

Read more about the proposed expansion at Philly.com by clicking here.

[uam_ad id=”52088″]