Steel Mills

Possible Lay Off at Evraz Regina

January 11, 2014

Evraz NA said it may need to lay off more than 400 steel workers at the Evraz Regina mill in Saskatchewan due to transportation problems at the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways. Warning notices were sent last week to approximately 420 of its 510 employees in the company’s tubular steel division.

Evraz says pipe inventory is piling up due to winter storms in Western Canada that have delayed rail cars used to ship orders.

A three day layoff planned for the Tubular Division’s Spiral Mill on January 13-January 16 was canceled, but the notice for an indefinite layoff for January 20 is still in effect.

Due to shortage of scrap material, the three day lay-off clause will remain in effect for the Steel Division. The company told USW workers that operations will be curtailed for Rolling Mill employees on Jan. 11 & 12 and Melt Shop workers on Jan. 13 & 14, with regular operations resuming on Jan. 15.

The Evraz NA statement is as follows:

“Due to recent rail-related logistics challenges, we may need to temporarily suspend production at the spiral mill while we work to move out the abundance of pipe orders on the ground. However, in light of the diligence of our EVRAZ team members and the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railroads, we are optimistic that the issues will be resolved over the next couple of weeks and we will be able to avoid a production curtailment and related layoff. We issued the layoff notice as a precaution since our collective bargaining agreement requires two weeks advance notification.”

Evraz Regina (formerly known as IPSCO) is a mini-mill employing 510 workers that recycles steel scrap and produces steel plate and coil which is converted into energy tubular products. Evraz Regina is part of Evraz North America which produces more than 5 million tons annually of flat, long and tubular products.