What you’re seeing on this massive flatbed truck (commonly dubbed a “heavy hauler”) is one of six hot mill stands, which ultimately hold the rollers used to compress, roll and shape steel strips into specific cross-section profiles. And heavy they are, with each stand weighing 116 tons.

As impressive as our mill stands are, the complexity of their travel to reach us is equally substantial. The logistics journey begins in an SMS Group workshop in Hilchenbach, Germany and ends right here in Osceola.

The stands are manufactured in Hilchenbach and then spend two nights on heavy trucks before reaching the barges in Germany’s Brake Harbor. The stands are then placed on a massive container ship that will sail across the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico taking only a few short weeks.

Once the ship reaches New Orleans, numerous river barges navigate the final leg of the journey up the Mississippi River to our dock in Osceola.

In addition to barge shipments, thousands of crates with equipment pieces are arriving by truck to our facility. With around 600 truckloads in Gulf ports staged for delivery, we’re amazed by the logistics feat our construction team is tackling.