Steel Mill

The auction for RG Steel's Sparrows Point steel mill, expected today, will be delayed by a week. Attorneys for the company, which is in bankruptcy protection, confirmed Tuesday morning that the sale was not underway as originally planned. An attorney for Kinder Morgan, one of the major creditors, said the auction had been rescheduled to next week. Jerry Conners, president of the United Steelworkers Local 1223 in Yorkville, Ohio, said he was told RG Steel's Wheeling, W.Va., assets were being auctioned off Tuesday.

The auction for RG Steel's Sparrows Point steel mill, expected Tuesday, will be delayed by a week. The sale of the Baltimore County facility as well as RG Steel's assets in Warren, Ohio, is now scheduled for 10 a.m. next Tuesday in New York. Attorneys for the company did not give a reason for the delay in a court filing Tuesday, other than to say that RG Steel officials are authorized to postpone the auction as they "deem appropriate" if major creditors agree. The auction for RG Steel's assets in the Wheeling, W.Va., region went forward Tuesday as planned, though results were not available as of early evening.

Hundreds of workers laid off from the Sparrows Point steel mill will receive job retraining and other services under a $3 million U.S. Department of Labor grant announced Monday. The funding will expand job-related services under the National Emergency Grant program to 885 workers affected by the closure. Mill owner RG Steel LLC, which filed for bankruptcy protection in May, is in the midst of laying off nearly 2,000 workers, almost all of its workforce at Sparrows Point. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, who had pushed for the grant along with Sen. Ben Cardin, called the funding "a critical lifeline" for the workers.

Growing up in Dundalk, Kent Mosmiller knew about Sparrows Point Country Club. He spent summers on little boats along Bear Creek where he could check out the 40-foot cabin cruisers at the club marina and, beyond that, the green expanse of the golf course. It wasn't for him or his family. The club was an enclave for what he called "white hats" at Bethlehem Steel, which established the club as a benefit for supervisors in the 1920s. Neither Mosmiller nor his parents ever worked for the company.

The Sparrows Point steel mill will have more time to find buyers — two to four weeks extra — under an agreement hammered out Thursday in the bankruptcy case. Owner RG Steel's unsecured creditors had contended that the July 27 deadline to close a deal, just two months after the company filed for bankruptcy protection, was so tight that it would harm the chances of finding a buyer to pay fair value and restart the facilities being idled. The terms of the new deadline were outlined in court papers Thursday.

The first big wave of layoffs hit Sparrows Point on Friday after the steel mill's owner essentially shut down its critically important blast furnace. Joe Rosel, president of United Steelworkers Local 9477, said most of the workers told not to report back to the Baltimore County mill next week were in the iron- and steelmaking departments, though he couldn't say how many were notified. Other workers, including many in central maintenance, also were notified. The "L" blast furnace shutdown that began Wednesday starts a domino effect of layoffs that is expected to affect nearly 2,000 workers - all but a few hundred at the steel mill.

The owner of the struggling Sparrows Point steel mill faces a tight deadline — late July — to sell the plant and other assets under the terms of an interim loan for up to $50 million that a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge approved Friday. The mill's owner, RG Steel LLC, filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors Thursday, just days before it plans to idle operations at plants in three states and lay off thousands of workers, including nearly 2,000 in Sparrows Point, starting Monday.

The Sparrows Point steel mill stumbled into bankruptcy for the second time in 11 years as its owner filed Thursday for Chapter 11 protection from creditors as it prepares to idle operations and cut nearly 2,000 jobs at the plant next week. RG Steel LLC said in documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware that it owed more than $1 billion and had run out of cash, giving the first look at the privately held company's troubled finances. It also has $1 billion in assets. The company is seeking a buyer for Sparrows Point as well as its two steel plants in Wheeling, W.Va., and Warren, Ohio, and other steel-related operations, as it copes with a "liquidity crisis.

It's deja vu at Sparrows Point. The Baltimore County plant once again faces wholesale layoffs and a possible sale. The same story has played out every couple of years for the past decade at the steel plant, whose future remains in limbo. The revolving pattern of new owners and layoffs that began when longtime owner Bethlehem Steel declared bankruptcy in 2001 leaves some questioning how much more the Sparrows Point plant can take and remain viable. "How many lives does a mill have?"

The owner of the financially ailing Sparrows Point steel plant is idling operations there, warning 1,975 workers Thursday that they would be laid off starting next month. The news, the latest casting doubt on the future of the Baltimore County facility, came as RG Steel is shopping the steel mill and its other assets to potential buyers. RG Steel informed the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulations that layoffs would begin June 4 and continue through June 18. The state said the company would be laying off 1,714 hourly and 261 salaried workers, losses that would be a significant blow to the economy.