Steel Mills

AHMSA Restarts Furnace Following Major Upgrades

April 5, 2022

Mexican flat-rolled steelmaker Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA) has restarted its No. 5 blast furnace following a planned two-week upgrade outage, a company spokesman said.

The 130 million pesos ($6.5 million) investment included upgrades to its continuous caster, coking plant ovens, service areas, and loading systems.

Maintenance to AHMSA’S No. 5 blast furnace – its largest – was aimed at increasing slab capabilities to meet strong domestic and international demand, the company said.

Despite an electrical fire last week that damaged to No. 5’s air blower, the project was not derailed, and the upgrade was completed on time.

AHMSA said the latest improvements didn’t include the company’s No. 6 furnace that’s been idled since 2020 because market conditions, according to SMU’s blast furnace status table.

The No. 5 furnace has capacity of 1.91 million tons per year and the No. 6 furnace annual capacity of 1.27 million tons, according to the Association for Iron and Steel Technology’s 2021 Directory of Iron and Steel Plants.

AHMSA makes hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil, plate, tinplate and structural shapes, per its website.

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.