Pittsburgh — ArcelorMittal has begun preparations to restart the No. 4 blast furnace at its Indiana Harbor steel mill after blowing down the furnace in late March in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, a spokesman for the company said Aug. 3.
The company is also currently working through repairs to the D blast furnace at its Burns Harbor mill, also located in Indiana, following an explosion at the facility July 16. The repairs are expected to take a couple of weeks, ArcelorMittal spokesman Bill Steers said.
"The flexibility afforded by our ArcelorMittal USA assets allows the company to continue matching production with customer demand," Steers said in a statement. "We do not anticipate any significant changes in employment as a result of the production changes at these facilities."
The D blast furnace at Burns Harbor has a rated annual capacity of 2.48 million mt, according to the Association for Iron and Steel Technology. Burns Harbor is located about 40 miles southeast of Chicago along Lake Michigan.
