Evraz NA Confirms One-Week Outages at Portland Plate Mill

Evraz North America has taken an approximately one-week unplanned outage at its plate mill in Portland, Ore., market participants said.

The downtime was needed because of problems with a reheat furnace, they said.

Evraz The steelmaker has also scheduled a weeklong planned outage at the Portland plate mill in March, sources said.

A company spokeswoman confirmed that information provided to SMU was accurate. “Both outages are correct,” she said.

A subsidiary of Russian steelmaker Evraz, Evraz NA operates the only plate mill in the western U.S. The mill’s location near both deep-water ports and rail mean Evraz NA can supply Portland with imported as well as domestic slabs, according to the company’s website.

Plate prices, unlike those for sheet, are on mostly firm ground.

SMU’s plate price stands at $1,825 per ton ($91.25 per cwt), roughly unchanged from $1,820 per ton a month ago. Hot-rolled coil prices, in contrast, have fallen approximately 15% from $1,730 per ton to $1,480 per ton over that same period, according to SMU’s interactive price tool.

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.