Blast Furnace

Russian steelmaker OAO Severstal, which closed on an $810 million deal to buy Sparrows Point in May with promises to invest significantly in the steel plant, said its first major project will be to upgrade the blast furnace. The $10 million renovation will begin in late summer and the blast furnace, which creates raw steel from ore, would be shut down for about 14 days. It was unclear what would happen to employees during the shutdown. The upgrades would allow the plant to produce more steel and in turn increase profitability, the Severstal executives said.

The purchase of the Sparrows Point steel mill by an Esmark Inc.-led venture does not guarantee the plant will live long and prosper. But the deal gives it the best possible chance to do so. With Esmark bosses in the office and 2008 on the calendar, the mill will get focused management and a cheap U.S. dollar. That's a favorable combo it hasn't had in a long, long time. And the dollar might be the more important of the two. The group buying Sparrows Point includes Chicago-based Esmark, Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp.

Mittal Steel Co. NV should wrap up the sale of its Sparrows Point mill within the next six to eight weeks - longer than the timetable initially set by the Justice Department, Chief Executive Officer Lakshmi N. Mittal said yesterday. Mittal said that "good progress" was being made on the proposals received and that a result would be announced within that time frame "or before." His comment came during a conference call originating in Luxembourg to discuss first-quarter earnings. Under the Justice Department order issued Feb. 20, Mittal had 90 days to find a buyer for the Baltimore County steel mill.

The Justice Department's decision to require the sale of the Sparrows Point Mill as a condition of Mittal Steel Co.'s $33 billion acquisition of Arcelor SA is not necessarily bad news for Sparrows Point. But it's not necessarily good news, either. It means only that the Point's future is as uncertain as ever, and that's something the facility's 2,400 workers can probably live with. In theory, one would think that it's better to be part of the world's largest steel producer. That's the view of United Steelworkers - the union is asking federal officials to reconsider the order.

The Justice Department's order that Mittal Steel Co. NV sell its Sparrows Point mill in Baltimore County raises questions about the future for the plant and its workers. Here's a look at some of the issues: Why did the government order Mittal to sell Sparrows Point? It was concerned that Mittal's purchase of Luxembourg-based Arcelor S.A. would give it too much market power over tin- plated steel products in North America. The Justice Department named Sparrows Point specifically because the mill produces both raw steel slabs and final products such as food containers and aerosol cans.

Netherlands-based Mittal Steel Co. NV is offering workers at Sparrows Point another round of five-week layoffs, a sign that the world's largest steelmaker doesn't expect the industrywide slowdown to recover immediately in the new year. It is the third such offer since October as Mittal scales back production to stay on par with demand and avoid an inventory glut. Last month, crude steel production in North America totaled 10.2 million metric tons, down 2.2 percent compared with November a year ago, according to the International Iron and Steel Institute.

The blast furnace at the Sparrows Point steel mill should be back up and running by Friday, officials from parent company Mittal Steel Co. NV said yesterday. The giant furnace, which makes the molten iron that is mixed with scrap metal to produce steel, has been down since June 23, when lightning struck an electrical substation and cut power to the plant. The three-hour outage allowed the furnace - which normally operates at more than 3,000 degrees F. - to cool, causing the liquid metal on its walls to solidify and create slag.

About 150 workers will go on voluntary, temporary layoff tomorrow at the Sparrows Point steel mill even though teams working to fix the giant blast furnace are making progress toward restarting it. The "L" blast furnace, which makes the molten iron that is mixed with scrap metal to produce steel, has been down since June 30. A power outage on June 23 allowed the furnace - which normally operates at more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit - to cool, causing the...

The giant steel-making furnace at Sparrows Point broke down Friday, halting production and forcing a monthlong temporary layoff of an undisclosed number of workers. The shutdown comes as Sparrows Point's Netherlands-based parent company, Mittal Steel Co. NV, is considering selling the plant to avoid antitrust issues related to its pending merger with Luxembourg-based Arcelor SA. The merged company, to be called Arcelor-Mittal, would be the world's largest steelmaker by a factor of five and produce more than 110 million tons of steel a year.

Walking outside yesterday into a pressure-cooker of a day, 59-year-old Daniel Pasko smiled and stripped off his shirt to reveal his summer uniform: a thick puff of white chest hair and a vast expanse of skin, ready for a tan. Finally, summer weather had arrived - made all the hotter by comparison after the third-coolest May on record in Baltimore. It seemed as though someone had opened the blast furnace door: The mercury topped out at 90 degrees in the city and 88 at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.