US Steel will restart its No 8 blast furnace at its Gary Works, Indiana, mill on 1 August after more than three months of downtime.
The 1.2mn short ton (st)/yr blast furnace was idled in April as steel demand from automotive customers fell off as they shut down because of Covid-19-related stay-at-home orders.
The blast furnace is being brought online to meet growing contract demand from the automotive industry, and other demand from the appliance, packaging, and construction sectors.
It is the third furnace for US Steel to bring back online, following the restart of the 1.36mn st/yr No 6 furnace at Gary Works and the June restart of the 1.5mn st/yr No 1 furnace at Mon Valley near Pittsburgh.
The move comes after US Steel rolled out a $40/st price increase for flat-rolled products on 20 July, followed by Cleveland-Cliffs’ steelmaking subsidiary AK Steel. Market participants have expressed doubt that the price increase will stick.
The Argus weekly domestic US hot-rolled coil (HRC) index rose this week by $1.50/st to $463.50/st, breaking five weeks of declines.
The market continues to grapple with potential oversupply on the market, with AK Steel also bringing back online its 2.2mn st/yr Dearborn Works this week. In total, US Steel and AK Steel will have brought online 6.26mn st/yr of pig iron production back online. But sentiment has been somewhat tempered as ArcelorMittal suffered an explosion and fire last week at furnace D of its Burns Harbor mill in Indiana, removing the 2.73mn st/yr furnace from operation.