Steel Mills

USS Granite City HSM, downstream ops continue despite idling of steelmaking

December 8, 2023

U.S. Steel will continue to operate the hot strip mill and finishing lines at its Granite City Works in southern Illinois.

The Pittsburgh-based company told SMU that those operations would continue despite the “indefinite” idling of iron- and steelmaking at Granite City.

“Rolling and finishing lines will continue to run using slabs from other facilities in order to meet the needs of our customers,” a U.S. Steel spokeswoman said in an email to SMU.

Granite City sports an 80-inch hot-strip mill, a 51-inch pickle line, a 56-inch four-stand cold-reduction mill, and a 49-inch hot-dip galvanizing and Galvalume line, according to U.S. Steel’s website.

Recall that U.S. Steel announced the indefinite idling of steelmaking at Granite City in late November, including its ‘B’ blast furnace. Granite City has two blast furnaces: ‘A’ and ‘B’. The ‘A’ furnace was indefinitely idled in April 2020, according to SMU’s blast furnace status table.

The mill makes hot-rolled, cold-rolled, and coated sheet for customers in the construction, container, pipe and tube, service center, and automotive sectors. The facility, before the idlings, had annual raw steelmaking capacity of 2.8 million net tons, per U.S. Steel’s website.

Michael Cowden

Michael Cowden is managing editor for Steel Market Update. Cowden has covered the steel industry since 2007. He has since 2014 specialized in flat-rolled steel but has previously reported on steel long products, steel pipe and tube as well as aluminum. Before joining SMU, Cowden held reporting jobs at Fastmarkets AMM in Chicago - where he was involved in launching AMM's daily hot-rolled coil index, 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.