Final Thoughts

US Steel Košice Idles Second Blast Furnace

Written by Laura Miller


US Steel has idled a second blast furnace at its Košice steelworks in Slovakia.

US Steel

The No. 1 BF at Košice has been temporarily idled as of Dec. 2 “as a result of very high energy prices, low market demand and surging imports,” a US Steel spokeswoman confirmed to SMU in an email Tuesday, Dec. 6.

In September, the company pulled forward a 60-day planned outage on the No. 2 Košice BF. That furnace has remained down, awaiting an improvement in customer activity.

“We expect to resume two BF operations at the beginning of 2023,” the spokeswoman added.

A third BF at the carbon flat-rolled, electrical steel, and spiral-weld pipe mill remains in operation.

In its third quarter earnings conference call in late October, executives of the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker commented on the challenging environment it has been facing in Europe. President and CEO David Burritt said on the call the company would continue to adjust to manage the headwinds of high raw material and energy costs, buyer destocking, and the continuing war in neighboring Ukraine.

By Laura Miller, Laura@SteelMarketUpdate.com

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Final thoughts

Thanks to everyone who attended our Steel Hedging 101 workshop in Chicago on Wednesday. I learned a lot from StoneX Group’s Spencer Johnson, who instructs the course, and from your good questions. One thing that Spencer said sticks with me as I write this column. Namely, that momentum drives steel prices more than other commodity markets. If you watch steel futures, you’ll see up days and down days. But it’s rare to see the momentum shifting back and forth within any given day.