Steel Mills
USS Suffers Short Term BF Outage at Gary Works
Written by John Packard
April 7, 2016
With lead times extended and supply constrained any surprise outages, or the rumor of an outage, could have a dramatic impact on an already spooked flat rolled market. On Sunday, US Steel suffered a short term unexpected outage on their largest blast furnace, #14 at Gary Works. The two day outage is projected to have cost the company approximately 18,000 tons of pig iron which, when processed through their BOP (basic oxygen process) and combined with scrap would produce more than 20,000 tons of steel.
With each passing day the rumor of an outage at US Steel spread around the flat rolled buying community. There were some who worried that the fallout would affect their orders whether with US Steel or elsewhere.
As we dug into the story we learned that US Steel had scheduled their #8 blast furnace to undergo routine maintenance over a 30 day period. We learned that the mill has been building an inventory of slabs to accommodate the outage and that there shouldn’t be any impact to their customers.
We spoke directly to US Steel through their External Communications & Community Affairs office about the issue and Jessica Franklin told SMU, “The Gary No. 14 furnace underwent unscheduled maintenance on Sunday evening but was brought back online Tuesday. There was minimal impact on production. The Gary No. 8 furnace is coming offline this Friday for a scheduled maintenance project.”
Our understanding is the #8 furnace will be down for approximately 30 days. This furnace is rated at 3300 tons per day of pig iron.
US Steel has been working through issues related to the permanent closure of their blast furnace at Fairfield Works in Alabama and the temporary idling of the two furnaces and related equipment at Granite City Works just outside of St. Louis. We will learn more about these outages when US Steel announces earnings later this month and hosts their earnings conference call with analysts.
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Steel Mills
AHMSA opens doors to potential buyers as $1.3B asset auction nears
AHMSA is opening its doors to potential buyers to tour its steel plant and mining operations in northern Mexico in preparation for the next stage of its bankruptcy process: the auction of its assets.
USW seeks clarity on USS plans for Granite City Works
The United Steelworkers union has asked U.S. Steel to elaborate on its Granite City Works plans following reports that the steelmaker is ending processing at the facility.
Nucor maintains plate prices, opens October order book
Nucor aims to keep plate prices flat for a seventh straight month with the opening of its October order book.
ArcelorMittal Mexico to import from sister mills as it works to resume DRI production
ArcelorMittal has partially restarted operations at its direct reduction plant in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan. An explosion on Aug. 18 rocked the massive steelworks on Mexico’s Pacific coast, impacting production of direct-reduced iron (DRI).
Fall maintenance outages are coming in hot
Labor Day has passed, the sun is starting to set a little earlier each day, and cooler weather has begun to find its way down to many of us across North America. And you know what that means for the steel industry… Fall maintenance outages!