Steel Mills
Explosion at US Steel Edgar Thomson
Written by Sandy Williams
June 21, 2016
An explosion and fire at US Steel Edgar Thomson resulted in the evacuation of the steel plant in Braddock, Pennsylvania last night. Firefighting crews from Forest Hills and Braddock responded. No injuries were reported.
US Steel released the following statement:
“At approximately 7:30 p.m. last evening, an incident occurred in the steelmaking area of the Edgar Thomson Plant. Everyone in the area was able to safely evacuate and has been accounted for. We have begun an investigation to determine the root cause. No further details are available at this time.”
Edgar Thomson plant is a part of US Steel’s Mon Valley Works. The plant is located about 10 miles south east of Pittsburgh and produces steel slabs.
The plant has two blast furnaces, two top-blown oxygen process (BOP) vessels, a ladle metallurgy facility, and a dual-strand continuous slab caster. Mon Valley works has an annual raw steel production capability of 2.9 million net tons.
SMU Note: Late in the day we heard that the issue was with a vacuum degasser and not with the casters or slab rolling equipment. The expectation is for minimal impact on production at this facility (in the short term there may be limitations of IF quality slabs).
Sandy Williams
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