Company Announcements
January 19, 2026
ArcelorMittal Mexico restarts blast furnace after 6-month outage
Written by Laura Miller
ArcelorMittal Mexico announced it has restarted the blast furnace at its Lazaro Cardenas steel mill in the state of Michoacan on Mexico’s Pacific coast.
On Jan. 15, the steelmaker said it “began the process of unloading the blast furnace” at Lazaro Cardenas.
SMU has updated its Blast Furnace Status Table, noting the news.
The company had been forced to shut down the mill’s 1.5-million-metric-ton-per-year blast furnace in July after two power outages damaged operations.
“The reactivation of the blast furnace is part of its strategy to normalize operations at the port’s steel complex,” the company stated.
ArcelorMittal produces both long and flat steel products at its Lazaro Cardenas mill. The blast furnace is used for longs production, mainly wire rod, while the four EAFs and a hot strip mill produce sheet steel. The mill’s total annual production capacity is 5.3 million mt.
On top of the unplanned BF outage, the mill in southwest Mexico has faced other production woes in recent years, stemming from workforce stoppages and an August explosion at its direct-reduction plant.
