United States Steel to Restart Granite City Works Blast Furnace, Steelmaking Facilities

[DonViejo]

Source: NASDAQ GlobeNewswire




BY LUIS SANCHEZ - 03/07/18 10:59 AM EST

March 07, 2018 08:04 ET | Source: United States Steel Corporation

PITTSBURGH, March 07, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- United States Steel Corporation (NYSE:X) announced today it will restart one of two blast furnaces (“B” blast furnace) and the steelmaking facilities at its Granite City Works, an integrated steelmaking plant in Granite City, Ill. The additional capacity will support anticipated increased demand for steel in the United States from the pending action announced by President Donald J. Trump on March 1, 2018, as a result of the U.S. Department of Commerce Section 232 national security investigation on steel imports.

“Our Granite City Works facility and employees, as well as the surrounding community, have suffered too long from the unending waves of unfairly traded steel products that have flooded U.S. markets,” said U. S. Steel President and Chief Executive Officer David B. Burritt. “The Section 232 action announced by President Trump last week recognizes the significant threat steel imports pose to our national and economic security. The President’s strong leadership is needed to begin to level the playing field so companies like ours can compete, win and create jobs that support our employees and the communities in which we operate as well as strengthen our national and economic security. We will continue to support our customers with the high-quality products they have come to expect from U. S. Steel.”

The company anticipates calling back approximately 500 employees beginning this month. The restart process could take up to four months.

“We’ve worked closely and cooperatively with leadership of the United Steelworkers to develop a plan that will help us work through the restart process in the safest, most efficient manner possible while enabling longer-term collaboration designed to improve the plant’s competitiveness,” Burritt said. “We appreciate and thank the USW leadership and membership for their passionate efforts around the Section 232 investigation as well as in support of the restart process at Granite City Works. Together, we are committed to ensuring the steel industry remains a fundamental part of American manufacturing because American manufacturing is stronger with American-made steel.”

The company expects to provide information on the anticipated financial impact of the restart as more details on the President’s executive order become available for analysis in the coming days.

Both Granite City Works blast furnaces and its steelmaking facilities were idled in December 2015 and the plant’s hot strip mill was idled in January 2016 in response to challenging market conditions, including global excess steel capacity and unfairly traded imports. The pickle line, cold mill and finishing lines at Granite City Works continued to operate in line with customer demand. The hot strip mill was restarted in February 2017 as the company adjusted its hot strip mill operating configuration to meet customer needs after deciding to accelerate the pace of its asset revitalization efforts. Granite City's “A” blast furnace remains idled.

CONTACT:

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Read more: https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/03/07/1417554/0/en/United-States-Steel-to-Restart-Granite-City-Works-Blast-Furnace-Steelmaking-Facilities.html

[dalton99a]

1. Server crashes due to avalanche of foundry job applications from across the nation

[global1]

2. I Sense A Self Congratulatory Tweet Coming From DJ.....nt

[RKP5637]

4. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, ... IT's ME!!!!! All ME, Donald J. Trump. n/t

[Girard442]

3. The time frame is suspicious.

It seems pretty certain that Trump shot from the hip with the tariffs, catching everyone unawares.* They are far from being a done deal, especially if the market tanks. It sounds to me like the CEO is sucking up to Trump, by making the announcement without time to do any serious analysis or number-crunching and probably not comitting any resources, figuring he can quietly walk it back in the future.

*Except Carl Icahn, looks like.

[machoneman]

9. I know a bit about steel making at the blast furnace side.

The first step on a long-idled furnace is to replace the old firebrick, a long, dirty and tedious process. I'll venture the CEO has jumped the gun as it will take months before the first melt/pour can be made. If he's smart, he'll await for official word and only then decide to start a small handful of kiln workers and spend some major cash on materials. Even then, there is no guarantee that heavy foreign retaliation may cause the ever-more mercurial president to back-off and rescind said import tariffs, leaving US Steel in a quandary.

Short vid on how-to:

[Girard442]

10. Hey, Trump saw in the LOTR movies...

...that long-idled furnaces can be restarted in minutes by a skeleton crew -- while a dragon is in (heh heh) hot pursuit.

[orangecrush]

11. From a former Steelworker

Great post!

[Javaman]

16. funny you say that. I only know enough about blast furnaces to be dangerous, but...

my first thought was, "what about the firebrick?"

Thanks for answering my question.

Cheers!

[stonecutter357]

5. #fakenews.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

6. Because they are going to raise the price of steel by 25%...

... and then find some tax write off to go with it.

[sandensea]

7. That's good (if true) - but with auto output slipping, I doubt steel output will change much

It did recover from 4 m tons a month, to 7 m a month, under Obama.

[apnu]

8. If the GOP is so pro-business and pro-tax breaks and pro-US worker (like they say)...

... Why even bother with tariffs? Simply give US produced steel a huge tax cut, shouldn't that spur steel makers to fire furnaces and lower prices?

The GOP is all about abolishing taxes right? And giving tax credits to incentivize businesses, right? They have majorities in the Federal government and a ton of Rust Belt states and other Red States who'd love having that blue collar work, right?

[modrepub]

12. Sure The Steelworkers Are Happy

Average steel job pays $34-45k/year. And the steel industry is highly automated. Back in the 90s I was in a mill that made bars from slabs of steel. Whole building could run with less than 10 people.

Now consider computer programers. They earn in the $80-100k range and their work is not highly automated; out sourced to India maybe but not automated (yet).

Couple of things lost on a lot of people. Manufacturing in the US is now a low-end profit industry. It's been constantly squeezed on the production side for decades to the point that it actually takes fewer workers today to produce the same output as decades ago.

Economics always works towards pushing the system to gain the most goods from a limited resource pool. So what's missed in this argument is that the economy is always reassigning resources to get the most return. Simply put our generic workforce has moved from less return manufacturing to other more profitable activities like programming. In my steel vs programing analogy it would be an ounce of computer code is worth much more than an ounce of steel. Or if you like compare the market capitalization of US Steel versus Microsoft.

Donnie will never understand how economics works. Penn business grad my a--...

[sinkingfeeling]

13. Great. Thought I read the tariffs would cost 146,000 US jobs. So getting

500 steel workers back is a great swap, right?

[Vinca]

18. It's only a matter of time before automation takes most of the 500 jobs.

This whole thing is more politics than anything else. Dear Leader pleasing his idiot base.

[OliverQ]

14. My concern with this type of news is it may galvanize the base in rust-belt states

that we need to return to blue, while destroying the rest of the country.

Steelworkers will vote for Trump again over this news, despite it harming everyone else.

[LiberalLovinLug]

15. Exactly

As Democrats we have to stop picking away at the low hanging fruit. Its easy to dance and laugh at Trump for being such an moran for going against his own economic advisor, and much of his own party. Thinking he's an idiot for doing this.

But he, or someone much smarter than him that he listens to, knows exactly what they are doing. Fuck the economy, or the costs of construction that will increase across the country, they are doing this to build on their wins in the rust belt. Those workers will read a story like this and many will say "maybe Trump is good for us". The rust belt states votes played a pivotal role in the last election. If he can retain his votes and even get a bump from this, the GOP may guarantee their hold on Congress.

[BadGimp]

17. Big risk to take banking on Trump to do what he says...

eom