[1] The site and plant were briefly owned by an investor group that purchased much of Kaiser's assets before they were sold to a Kaiser creditor, Brazilian firm Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (now Vale), which created California Steel as a joint venture with Kawasaki Steel (now JFE Holdings).
[1][2] California Steel paid about $120 million for the facility, and Vale do Rio Doce forgave its debt to Kaiser as part of the transaction.
[2] Its workforce had grown to about 950, and it imported steel from Mexico, Australia, Russia, China, and South Africa, as well as domestic purchases, and produced about 2 million tons of finished product annually.
[2] Lower demand for steel during the Great Recession caused the company's production to decrease to a low of 800,000 tons in 2009 before it began to recover the following year.
[6] On December 13, 2021, it was announced that Nucor had bought out Vale's share in the company, along with a small portion of JFE's to become the majority owner of California Steel Industries.