Around 22 blast furnaces are currently being restarted by steelmakers around the world, as steel demand picks up and also for operational reasons, analysts from UBS said in a Sept. 8 report. 

The restarts represent around 34% of the total blast furnace capacity that was hot-idled or temporarily halted due to COVID-19, and the rest can be expected to restart by year-end, according to the report. 

“This is not a surprise, given the time-constraints of hot idling and as demand is picking up,” said analysts led by Myles Allsop. “We expect most idled BFs to restart by end-20; this is needed for pig iron production ex-China to be flat h/h in 2H.” 

A total of 72 blast furnaces around the world with capacity of 132 million mt of crude steel were hot-idled or banked in 2020 as a result of COVID-19-related factors, said UBS, citing research from CRU. 

According to the research from both UBS and CRU, the idled BFs were located 31 in Europe of which 8 have now restarted; 26 in North America of which 6 have restarted; 13 in Latin America of which 4 have restarted; 46 in Asia of which 16 have restarted, and 15 in the rest of the world of which 6 have restarted. 

Some steelmakers are restarting furnaces in response to demand, which has partially recovered from April lows, but remains down around 30% year-to-July, according to UBS. However, others are reopening their furnaces because otherwise these will cool and may get blocked and inoperable, the analysts said. 

“Typically the minimum length a BF is banked is around three months due to economics and the maximum is around six months (after which it is hard to sustain the heat),” they said. 

Companies that have curtailed blast furnace output this year include ArcelorMittal, voestalpine, Thyssenkrupp, Vallourec, Salzgitter, US Steel, SSAB, Ferreira di Servola, Isdemir, Liberty, AK Steel, Nucor, Stelco, Usiminas, Gerdau and CSN, UBS reported.