US Steel stops blast furnace # 8

It is common knowledge that the cyclical nature of the steel industry can be a tough business, subject to severe fluctuations.

Last August, US Steel CEO David Berritt, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and other dignitaries gathered to announce a $ 750 million investment at the Gary Works steel mill.

After steel prices plummeted, raw material costs rose and market conditions deteriorated, just a year later, US Steel announced it would shutdown the East Chicago facility, as well as blast furnaces in Europe at Great Lakes' Detroit plants and at Gary Works.

The Pittsburgh-based steel mill, one of the largest employers along the region's highly industrialized coastline, has shutdown blast furnace # 8 at the nation's largest steel mill with an annual production capacity of 7.5 million tonnes.

At Gary Works, US Steel operates three other blast furnaces, massive superheated metallurgical furnaces that turn coke, iron ore and limestone into pig iron, which is then forged into steel. Blast furnace # 8 is the smallest in the mill, with a production capacity of 3,300 tonnes of pig iron per day, according to the American Steel Institute.

The blast furnace was last refitted in 2013, when the hearth walls were replaced for the first time since 1995. The oven was also idle in 2014 when an unscheduled shutdown occurred.

US Steel plans to lay off up to 200 workers after a blast furnace shutdown in the Great Lakes region near Detroit, but spokeswoman Megan Cox said no layoffs are expected at the much larger Gary Works. The displaced workers will simply relocate to other parts of the sprawling steel mill that stretches seven miles from the shoreline of Lake Michigan.

Not everyone in East Chicago is so lucky. Roughly half of the 297 tin mill workers will be asked to transfer them to two other US Steel plants - both in northwestern Indiana - at the Gary Works and Midwest in Portage.

US Steel said the other half will be laid off in the foreseeable future.

Despite idling at a time when national steel processing capacity hovers around 80%, US Steel will continue to move forward with a five-year $ 750 million asset revitalization investment at Gary Works. The initiative includes hundreds of projects to improve critical assets such as four blast furnaces, a steel mill, foundries and a hot rolling mill.