USS Košice Running All Three Blast Furnaces as of This Week

The Slovakian subsidiary of the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker restarted the No. 1 furnace in early January. The No. 1 furnace at Košice was temporarily idled in early December in response to soaring energy prices, low demand, and surging imports.

The No. 2 furnace, meanwhile, had been left idled but that is no longer the case. The company in September pulled forward a 60-day planned outage on the No. 2 furnace. The furnace then remained down.

The spokespeople declined to provide detail on why the idled furnaces had restarted or where raw materials for them were being sourced.

Company executives noted a challenging market in Europe in the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call in late October. President and CEO David Burritt said then that US Steel Košice faced strong headwinds from high raw material and energy costs, buyer destocking, and the continuing war in neighboring Ukraine. The company will release fourth-quarter earnings on after markets close on Thursday, Feb. 2.

US Steel Košice bills itself as the largest steelmaker in Europe, employing nearly 9,000 people and producing approximately 4.5 million tons of steel annually. The facility sports three blast furnaces and makes a full range of flat-rolled steel, including hot-rolled, cold-rolled, coated, and tin mill products. It also makes electrical steels and spiral-welded pipes, per its website.

By Michael Cowden, michael@steelmarketupate.com