The "Vale do Aço" (The Valley of Steel), as this eastern part of Minas Gerais state is called, began to make its name after the "Estrada de Ferro Vitória Minas" railway crossed the region in the 1920s. Not long afterwards, the Belgo-Mineira company began to cut timber here for the charcoal production.

The decision to build an ironworks in Timóteo was taken in 1944.
The first blast furnace, supplied by the American company McKee, was put in operation only a year later.
In 1951 the first Bessemer converter was installed at the steelworks.

The production of stainless steel began in the mid-1970s, when the construction of blast furnace no. 2 (today the largest charcoal blast furnace in the world) was completed.

In 1992 the plant was privatised by the Brazilian government. The entire production complex was purchased by USINOR in 1998, known as ArcelorMittal Inox Brazil since 2007.

In 2011 the entire works became part of the Luxembourg-based Aperam group and is currently the only stainless steel producer in Brazil.