U.S. Steel has begun the process of restarting the 'B' blast furnace at its Granite City Works near St. Louis. “After several months of carefully analyzing customer demand, we made the decision to restart a blast furnace,” U.S. Steel President and CEO David B. Burritt said in a statement on Thursday afternoon.
Canada’s Algoma Steel announced ~1,000 layoffs on Monday as a result of disruptions from the US tariff situation.
Nippon Steel is making good on the big capex promises it made to secure its purchase of United States Steel Corp. This week, the Japanese company and American steelmaker together unveiled various capital investments they plan to make across U.S. Steel’s footprint.
In the Americas, the ongoing conversion to EAF melting is driving demand for prime grades of scrap and increased use of ore-based metallics
Upended by the Trump regime's tornado of tariffs, Algoma Steel is pivoting on its cross-border business model, shifting its focus to supplying the Canadian market.
“We are committed to bring the hot-end back to full operation. The goal is to bring back to work all employees of the currently idled units as soon as we can," Chairman, President, and CEO Lourenco Goncalves said in a letter to colleagues on Wednesday.
Truchas works in Lazaro Cadenas, Michoacan, western Mexico. Repairs may take up to six months.
A scrap trader looks back fondly at blast furnace steelmaking.
Cleveland-Cliffs is idling blast furnace, BOF shop, and continuous caster functions at its Dearborn plant, but downstream operations will remain unaffected, the company confirmed. Cliffs said its pickling line tandeom cold mill (PLTCM) and its extra wide automotive-grade galvanizing line for exposed parts will continue operations at the Dearborn, Michigan-based facility.
SEC documents also name Trump specifically as having veto power certain decisions are part of the “Golden Share” provision.
We just wrapped another Steel 101 Workshop, where you take what you learned in the classroom into the steel mill.
Cleveland-Cliffs Chairman, President, and CEO Lourenco Goncalves said he would keep one mill idled and still plans to idle another despite increased protections from Section 232 tariffs doubling to 50%.
The future of two projects supported in part by funding through the Department of Energy remains uncertain.
The company said, “The challenging demand conditions in Europe driven by geopolitical developments, trade and supply chain disruptions and escalating energy costs have affected the operating costs and financial performance."
The Canadian steelmaker said its absorbing higher tariffs as it moves forward.
Cleveland-Cliffs has decided to idle the steelmaking operations at its Dearborn Works in Michigan due to weak automotive demand.
"We experienced an event at the blast furnace which required a controlled shut down to facilitate repairs," a spokesperson said.
"The second half of last year was especially bad with the steel demand from the automotive sector slowing down, construction activity lagging and industrial production taking a hit," the CEO said.
The 106” Mill was part of Algoma's plate and strip combination facility.
Cleveland-Cliffs' Lourenco Goncalves said the company will install a new stove at Stelco’s blast furnace in Nanticoke, Ontario.
Earlier this month, Nippon Steel announced that it is applying for subsidies under the Japanese government’s Green Transformation Promotion Act to expand the company’s electric furnace steelmaking capabilities and to convert from blast furnace to electric furnace operations. As we have said before, transitioning from blast furnace- to electric furnace-based steelmaking is a good thing […]
It had been a relatively quiet and steady CME HRC futures market since the end of August. That was upended by Thursday’s news that instead of a two-week maintenance outage, Cleveland-Cliffs would hot idle the C-6 blast furnace at its Cleveland Works for an uncertain period of time. The CME October HRC contract, HRCV4, gained $22 per short ton (st) on the day to provisionally close at $744/st on Thursday. The first and second quarter futures strips of 2025 gained $25/st and $24/st to provisionally settle at $823/st and $829/st, respectively.
Cleveland-Cliffs plans to place the C-6 blast furnace at its Cleveland Works in Ohio on hot idle in October, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Cleveland-Cliffs expects its acquisition of Canada’s Stelco to close later this year, which will help the the Cleveland-based steelmaker as a bottom to steel tags nears.
The United Kingdom and other countries are using the “green” label to subsidize bailouts of obsolete, inefficient, and excess capacity that should exit the market. US steelmakers have invested billions of dollars in technologies that curb greenhouse gas output. These investments have been market-based and led by EAF producers such as Nucor, Steel Dynamics, and CMC.
Cleveland-Cliffs has been pursuing M&A opportunities for some time now and thinks it has found a solid partner with aligned interests in Stelco. The companies announced on Monday that Cliffs would acquire the integrated Canadian steelmaker. That same day, Cliffs held a conference call with analysts to discuss the acquisition. Lourenco Goncalves, Cliffs’ chairman, president, […]
North America has one of the most robust steel scrap markets in the world. The continent has a long history of steel production, significant imports of steel and steel-containing products, and mature steel consumption. Due to this, the reservoir of scrap available to be recycled each year in the US and other North American markets is substantial and growing.
US sheet prices continue to fall, with SMU’s average hot-rolled (HR) coil price now at $670 per short ton (st). Prices for cold-rolled and coated products are now in the mid/high $900s/st. As I noted in my last Final thoughts, the consensus among our readers is that prices will bottom out in July. And that makes intuitive sense. Lead times in mid/late July should be stretching into the typically busier fall months. The question then is where prices bottom.
Algoma executives reiterated that operations are proceeding as normal following an unplanned BF outage earlier this year.
ArcelorMittal Mexico said it's on the brink of severing labor relations with striking members of the local mining union. This serious move comes as an illegal strike and the resulting mill outage persist into their second month, posing a significant threat to the continuation of the mill’s operations.