Steel Mills

NorthStar BlueScope Plans 10-Day Outage in Q4

Written by David Schollaert

September 23, 2021

North Star BlueScope intends to take a 10-day outage in November at its flat-rolled steel mill in Delta, Ohio, according to SMU sources.

northstar bluescope

The scheduled outage planned for the first week of November will be the final step to tie the new electric arc furnace and caster into the existing mill. The downtime is expected to cut November production totals by one-third, sources said.

The company declined Steel Market Update’s request for confirmation.

North Star BlueScope’s $700 million expansion at its Delta, Ohio, facility announced in 2019, will increase hot-rolled coil production by 850,000 tons annually, bringing its slab-making capacity to approximately 3.9 million tons per year, according to a company presentation.

The expansion includes the addition of a third EAF, second slab caster and new shuttle facility.

The first coil from the new equipment is expected early in first-quarter 2022, but it could take another 18 months for the expansion to ramp up to its nameplate capacity.

By David Schollaert, David@SteelMarketUpdate.com

 

David Schollaert

David Schollaert is a senior analyst for Steel Market Update. David joined SMU after more than a decade in the metals and mining industry in a myriad of different roles. Much of his early experience and expertise were within the coverage and analysis of steel-making raw materials and served previously as senior editor of the CRU Prices Service. Most recently, however, before his return to market analysis, David held roles as a metals buyer and an operations manager for raw material suppliers. Based in CRU’s Pittsburgh office, David can be reached at david@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-720-1008.

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