US steel companies announced the closure of three blast furnaces after the tariffs were imposed on US steel companies to resume production capacity

Release time：Jun 24, 2019 From：admin

United States Steel Corp said on Tuesday that it will shut down two blast furnaces in the United States and a blast furnace in Europe.

The main reason is that after US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on imported steel from countries including China, US steel producers resumed their original production capacity, but the current environment is that manufacturing demand is weakening. Prices are suppressed, so the recovery of production capacity has led to an oversupply of steel.

The first blast furnace closed in the United States is located at Gary Works, Indiana. The Gary plant has four blast furnaces with an annual capacity of 7.5 million tons of crude steel.

The second shut-down blast furnace is located at Great Lakes Works in Ecorse and River Rouge, Michigan, which has three blast furnaces with an annual capacity of 3.8 million tons of crude steel.

If you do not shut down these blast furnaces and let them continue to idle, starting from July, these idle blast furnaces will reduce the company's monthly production capacity by 20-22.5 tons, which is to reduce annual production capacity by 240-2.7 million tons. . Therefore, the company’s decision was made.

At the same time, in Europe, increasing imports and higher raw material costs are hurting the company's profits, so the company's blast furnace in Europe will also be discontinued.

US Steel’s earnings performance in the second quarter of this year was not satisfactory.

The company expects the adjusted second-quarter profit before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to be approximately $250 million, which is lower than the first quarter and less than analysts' forecast of $291 million. The company's 2018 profit is $1.1 billion. .