USS Granite City HSM, downstream ops continue despite idling of steelmaking

The Pittsburgh-based company told SMU that those operations would continue despite the “indefinite” idling of iron- and steelmaking at Granite City.

“Rolling and finishing lines will continue to run using slabs from other facilities in order to meet the needs of our customers,” a U.S. Steel spokeswoman said in an email to SMU.

Granite City sports an 80-inch hot-strip mill, a 51-inch pickle line, a 56-inch four-stand cold-reduction mill, and a 49-inch hot-dip galvanizing and Galvalume line, according to U.S. Steel’s website.

Recall that U.S. Steel announced the indefinite idling of steelmaking at Granite City in late November, including its ‘B’ blast furnace. Granite City has two blast furnaces: ‘A’ and ‘B’. The ‘A’ furnace was indefinitely idled in April 2020, according to SMU’s blast furnace status table.

The mill makes hot-rolled, cold-rolled, and coated sheet for customers in the construction, container, pipe and tube, service center, and automotive sectors. The facility, before the idlings, had annual raw steelmaking capacity of 2.8 million net tons, per U.S. Steel’s website.