ArcelorMittal to Shut Cleveland Steel Mill Blast Furnace

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): ArcelorMittal announced that it plans to idle a blast furnace at its Cleveland flat-rolled steel mill. The idling of the furnace is expected to take place this week. It must be noted that the furnace had just resumed operations following a maintenance shutdown.

The Cleveland mill has two blast furnaces in operation. The No.5 blast furnace has a capacity to produce 1.6 million short tons per year, whereas the No.6 furnace can produce 1.5 million short tons of steel per annum.

With this, the company has taken offline over 5.5 million short tons of steel production over the past two weeks. Earlier, it had decided to idle No.4 blast furnace at its Indiana Harbor West steel mill. Prior to that, it had also idled a blast furnace at its Dofasco mill in Hamilton, Ontario.

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Other steelmakers too have announced closure of operations due to coronavirus impacts. AK Steel had decided to shut down its 2.2 million short tons per year blast furnace at its Dearborn Works in Detroit, citing lack of demand from automotive market.

The Luxembourg-based integrated steelmaker had earlier closed two blast furnaces in France, so as to match production with market demand and ensure wellbeing of its employees. Additionally, it had stopped Asturias blast furnace in Spain and blast furnace number two at Taranto in Italy.