Excerpts:

The recent default on bond and lease payments by Bailey-PVS Oxides, and the company’s closure before that, were the results of a contentious dispute with Nucor Steel Decatur…

A lawsuit Bailey filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama outlines the controversy that led to its demise.

Bailey’s main customer was Nucor, and it provided only one service.

In a process called “pickling,” Nucor’s hot mill and cold mill soak steel in vats of hydrochloric acid to remove iron oxides. Bailey’s role was to take the used hydrochloric acid — called “spent pickle liquor” — and recycle it into usable acid for Nucor…

Problems began in 2006. Bailey delivered recycled hydrochloric acid to Nucor that, Nucor alleged, was tainted and had too much fluorine. The steelmaker said the acid damaged its equipment and steel. In October 2006, Nucor claimed Bailey owed it $1.2 million in damages. In February 2007, Nucor Comptroller Chad Potter advised Bailey that Nucor would stop paying its management fee, instead applying the money toward the damages it claimed Bailey owed…

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