Needing a scorecard.

From 1998 to 2004, the editors of this publication put together a Ferrous Scrap Flow Map each year that attempted to list the highest-volume electric arc furnace (EAF) steel mills in North America.

Even when updating the list every 12 months, as had been the case through 2004, editors could count on the need to make several changes in company names or plant capacity figures.

During much of that stretch, unfortunately, editors also had to be sure to include notes regarding any mills that had been idled, or in some cases even to remove mills from the list altogether if they had been disassembled.

Last year, we included an Aluminum Scrap Flow Map instead of the ferrous version, meaning that when updating the Ferrous Scrap Flow Map for this year, there were 24 months of changes to monitor rather than the usual 12.

The good news is that a healthy global metals market has meant tracking fewer mill closures, and most mills that appeared on the 2004 map remain on this year's edition.

There was still plenty of updating to do, however, primarily because of the number of mergers and acquisitions that have occured in the past two years. Most notably, the Nucor and Gerdau AmeriSteel names appear more frequently on the 2006 map than they did in 2004.

Joining the ranks of EAF steelmakers with facilities in all three North American nations is Europe's Mittal Steel. (Although, as Ispat, it did have facilities in Canada and Mexico listed in 2004.) Another European steelmaker, Russia's Severstal, now owns steelmaking capacity in Michigan and is a major investor in an EAF mill being built in Mississippi.

Consolidation, including more cross-border transactions, is perhaps making inroads into what often has been considered a fragmented market.

But as the Ferrous Scrap Flow Map continues to show, there is room for efficient operators of many different sizes. Tucked between the Nucor and the Gerdau AmeriSteel mills are plenty of other operations competing for market share.