USS to close Gary Works coke batteries

By KEVIN NEVERS

One month after U.S. Steel Corporation (USS) proposed the likely permanent closure of its coke operations at the Granite City, Illinois, Works, it’s announced the same fate of the coke ops at Gary Works.

The move, to take effect on or after May 13, will affect the 300 employed at the three coke batteries, USS spokesperson Sarah Cassella told the Chesterton Tribune today.

“It’s a strategic decision made after considering market conditions, our long-term coke position, and future anticipated steel-making operations, and those include the use of the electric arc furnace,” Cassella said.

USS President and CEO Mario Longhi announced earlier this month that the company is seeking to replace the blast furnace at its Fairfield, Ala., facility with an electric arc furnace, with a target start-up of 2017. Electric arc furnaces make steel by melting down scrap, rather than starting from scratch with iron ore and coal and so obviate the need in the first place for coke.

The company still has nine coke oven batteries with a total annual capacity of 4.7 million tons in service at the Clairton Plant at Mon Valley Works in Pennsylvania, Cassella noted. “And we also have relationships with other coke suppliers to support our operations.”

USS did invoke the WARN Act, in notifying United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1066 of the impending closure, Cassella said, and the company is hopeful of transitioning at least some of those members elsewhere. “We’re working with the USW to evaluate operations and work-force impacts.”

Six months ago, in September 2014--possibly telegraphing its decision to shutter the Gary Works coke batteries--USS announced that it was abandoning an ambitious but expensive coke replacement project at Gary Works, as part of the strategic belt-tightening which Longhi has referred to as the Carnegie Way.

Cassella confirmed today that the Gary Works coke-battery closure is a component of that belt-tightening. “It’s part of the overall picture of the Carnegie Way as the company looks to be more strategic and operate more efficiently,” she said.

Since the beginning of the year, USS has announced idlings and closures which will affect a total of 1,601 employees: at Gary Works, Granite City Works, its East Chicago tin mill, and two tubular facilities in Ohio and Texas. The company also invoked the WARN Act as a “precaution” when it notified the 1,918 members of the USW at other tubular ops in Lone Star, Texas, and Fairfield, of “temporary adjustments” in operations.

ArcelorMittal also announced in January the phased idling of its Indiana Harbor Long Carbon facility. Although the company expects that most of the 304 employees there--246 of them USW members--affected by the idling will be re-located or absorbed elsewhere, the move will likely result in the permanent loss of those 300 or so positions at Long Carbon.