Steel Mills

U.S. Steel Plans 25-Day Blast Furnace Outage in May

Written by David Schollaert

March 5, 2021

U.S. Steel plans to take a 25-day outage in May on the No. 1 blast furnace at its Mon Valley Works in western Pennsylvania, a company spokeswoman confirmed.

The outage is part of the steelmaker’s normal maintenance program, she said.

US SteelThe maintenance is to apply shotcrete–a sprayed concrete–and other standard upkeep, sources said.

Smaller outages are planned ahead of the the 25-day stoppage, probably beginning around March 21.

Most recently, furnace No. 1 had a minor outage in 2020, while furnace No. 3 underwent a major relining during the spring of 2019. The No. 3 blast furnace will be the sole furnace running during the 25-day outage on No. 1 at the Braddock plant, SMU’s source said.

Mon Valley Works is comprised primarily of a coke manufacturing facility in Clairton, Pa., steelmaking operations and slab casting operations in Braddock, Pa., and a rolling mill in West Mifflin, Pa. It also includes a coating operation in Fairless Hills, Pa., near Philadelphia.

The Braddock facility, also known as the Edgar Thomson Plant, has blast furnace capacity of 2.09 million tons per year, according to the Association for Iron and Steel Technology’s 2021 Directory of Iron and Steel Plants. The No. 1 furnace’s annual capacity is 1.09 million tons, and No. 3’s is 1 million tons per year.

By David Schollaert, David@SteelMarketUpdate.com

David Schollaert

David Schollaert is a senior analyst for Steel Market Update. David joined SMU after more than a decade in the metals and mining industry in a myriad of different roles. Much of his early experience and expertise were within the coverage and analysis of steel-making raw materials and served previously as senior editor of the CRU Prices Service. Most recently, however, before his return to market analysis, David held roles as a metals buyer and an operations manager for raw material suppliers. Based in CRU’s Pittsburgh office, David can be reached at david@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-720-1008.

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