Steel Mills

Cliffs Slates 45-Day Outage for Partial Reline of IH7 Blast Furnace
Written by Michael Cowden
June 25, 2021
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. plans to take a 45-day maintenance outage at the big No. 7 blast furnace at its Indiana Harbor steel works in East Chicago, Ind., a company spokeswoman said.
The planned outage, for a partial reline of the furnace, is scheduled to start on Sept. 1, she said.
The No. 7 furnace has capacity of 11,500 tons per day, according to SMU’s blast furnace status table – making it the largest blast furnace in North America by a wide margin.
Cleveland-Cliffs President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves had said during an earnings call earlier this year that the iron ore miner and steelmaker expected to take an outage on the No. 7 furnace.
Indiana Harbor makes hot-rolled, cold-rolled, hot-dipped galvanized and aluminized sheet for a wide range of downstream industries – including automotive, appliance and distribution.
By Michael Cowden, Michael@SteelMarketUpdate.com

Michael Cowden
Read more from Michael CowdenLatest in Steel Mills

Nucor reports improved earnings, sales, and operating rates
Nucor reported a sharp sequential rebound in the second quarter, buoyed by improved pricing and strong shipments. But the steelmaker is bracing for a modest slowdown in the months ahead.

Cliffs confirms Cleveland furnace restart, Dearborn furnace idling
Cleveland-Cliffs is idling blast furnace, BOF shop, and continuous caster functions at its Dearborn plant, but downstream operations will remain unaffected, the company confirmed. Cliffs said its pickling line tandeom cold mill (PLTCM) and its extra wide automotive-grade galvanizing line for exposed parts will continue operations at the Dearborn, Michigan-based facility.

Nucor spot HR list price unchanged at $900/ton
Nucor maintained its weekly list price for hot-rolled (HR) coil flat this week, following a price cut the previous week.

Despite trade chaos, Barry Schneider upbeat on SDI, steel
With 30 years of experience at Steel Dynamics, Barry Schneider reflects on the company and the state of the steel industry.

Algoma Steel seeks CAD$500M in operational support
Algoma Steel applied to Canada’s federal Large Enterprise Tariff Loan (LETL) program for $500 million to support its long-term operations.