Steel Mills

Cliffs Said Ramping Up No. 5 Blast Furnace After Minor Outage

Written by Michael Cowden

May 27, 2021

Cleveland-Cliffs is ramping up the No. 5 blast furnace at its steel mill in Cleveland, Ohio, after a minor incident earlier in the week, according to market participants.

A blowout on a tuyere resulted in limited damage, including melted wiring, and led to the furnace being down for several days, a source familiar with the matter told Steel Market Update on Thursday, May 27.

cliffs natural resourcesA tuyere is pipe that blows oxygen into a furnace.

“We are in the process of going back up again. It was just a temporary glitch,” he said. “We should be coming back up again today or tomorrow.”

The Cleveland-based steelmaker did not respond to requests for comment before this article was filed on Thursday.

The source brushed aside rumors, including some from competing mills, that the outage might have been more severe. “We might be coming back now,” he said.

The Cleveland mill has two blast furnaces: No. 5 and No. 6. The No. 5 furnace has iron production capacity of approximately 4,350 tons per day and the No. 6 sports capacity of approximately 4,150 tons per day, according to SMU’s blast furnace status table.

All told, Cliffs has eight operating blast furnaces in the U.S.

By Michael Cowden, Michael@SteelMarketUpdate.com

Michael Cowden

Michael Cowden is editor-in-chief for Steel Market Update. Cowden has covered the steel industry since 2007. He specializes in flat-rolled steel but has also reported on steel long products, steel pipe and tube, and aluminum. Before joining SMU, Cowden held reporting jobs at Fastmarkets AMM in Chicago, the Associated Press in Pittsburgh, and the Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh. He has also worked as a copy editor and in marketing at the University of Chicago Press. Cowden has a BA in English from the University of Chicago and an MSJ journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Contact him at michael@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7872.

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