Steel Mills
Algoma restarts steel production after unplanned outage
Written by Michael Cowden
February 15, 2024
Algoma Steel has restarted its blast furnace and resumed steelmaking at its mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.
The Canadian flat-rolled steelmaker said on Wednesday that steel production had resumed on Sunday, Feb. 11, after repairs to the furnace were completed.
Company CEO Michael Garcia has said the furnace should return to full production this month.
Recall that the repairs were needed after an unplanned outage on Jan. 20. The outage happened when a structure that held up utilities piping for the mill’s coke plant collapsed.
Algoma suspended blast furnace operations as a precaution. When the company tried to resume iron making, it found that the problems were not confined to the coke plant and had impacted the blast furnace as well.
Algoma has two blast furnaces: the No. 7, with daily iron-making capacity of 8,400 short tons (st), and the smaller No. 6, with daily iron-making capacity of 3,000 st. Only the No. 7 is active, according to SMU’s blast furnace status table.
The company makes hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil, and plate. Its plate, strip mill, and cold mill were not impacted.
Recall that Algoma plans to convert from integrated steelmaking to EAF steelmaking. Construction of two new EAFs is expected to be completed by the end of this year. The issues with the blast furnace and coke battery did not impact that timeline.
Michael Cowden
Read more from Michael CowdenLatest in Steel Mills
August US mill shipments slip but still higher than last year
The American Iron and Steel Institute reported a decline in the monthly shipments of US mills from July to August.
TransPod, Algoma, Supreme Steel linkup anchors Canadian steel in high-speed transit build
The three Canadian companies have announced a strategic partnership to support the development of an ultra-high-speed transit line from Edmonton to Calgary.
Metallus, USW agree to tentative four-year labor deal
Metallus and the United Steelworkers (USW) have agreed to a tentative four-year labor contract.
ArcelorMittal Dofasco resumes cokemaking after emergency maintenance
The Canadian steelmaker reported on Sept. 30 that “urgent maintenance” was needed in its coke plant off-gas systems. The work required coke oven gas from the No. 2 coke plant to be flared for most of that week.
AISI: Raw steel production ticks back down
US raw steel output declined last week after increasing the week prior, according to the latest data from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI). Output has see-sawed from week to week since mid-August. Still, it has remained historically strong over the past four months and has held near multi-year highs since June. Domestic mills […]