US Steel will continue operating its blast oven furnace (BOF) B in Granite City, Illinois but BOF A will remain idled until market conditions warrant its reactivation, the steelmaker indicated in an investor presentation.
Each BOF has an annual capacity of 1.4mn nt (1.3mn mt). BOF A1 and B2 were idled at the steelmaker’s Great Lakes site prior to 2020 but BOF D4 was idled in April 2020. All three furnaces with a total annual capacity of 3.8mn nt remain non-operational and are labeled as indefinitely idled by US Steel management. The company’s Lorain plant in Ohio for seamless pipe that has a 0.38mn nt annual capacity and its Lone Star plant in Texas with 0.79mn nt capacity are also listed in the indefinitely idled category.
On the other hand, US Steel has deemed its Gary Works facility fully operational with four blast furnaces totaling 7.5mn nt in annual capacity, after it reactivated its BOF No 4 in December 2020. The other three furnaces at Gary Works include No 6, No 8, and No 14.
The company’s Mon Valley plant in Pennsylvania is also fully operational with two blast furnaces, No 1 and No 3, with a total annual capacity of 2.9mn nt under active operations. The Fairfield Alabama plant was commissioned in October 2020 and is operational with 0.9mn nt annual capacity.
In Europe, US Steel’s Kosice BOF No 3 was restarted in January 2021 and now totals 5mn nt in annual production with three furnaces operational.