



US steel to restart blast furnace at plant Trump pushed to preserve
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. U.S. Steel plans to resume steelmaking at an Illinois plant where the Trump administration intervened last summer to keep production going.
The company stopped making steel at Granite City Works two years ago and had planned to further curtail operations before the administration blocked the move in September. It said it now sees signs of rising demand that justify restarting one of Granite City’s two blast furnaces early next year to produce molten iron for steel. U.S.
Steel also is expected to need the mill’s steelmaking capacity as some of its other mills undergo improvements promised by Nippon Steel, the new owner of U.S. Steel. “We are confident in our ability to safely and profitably operate the mill to meet 2026 demand," said U.S.
Steel Chief Executive David Burritt. The company expects to add about 400 employees at Granite City to operate the blast furnace, raising the plant’s workforce to about 1,200, a person familiar with the matter said. The decision to restart the furnace wasn’t influenced by the Trump administration, the person said.
Steel demand has been weak for much of the past two years, reflecting struggles in the manufacturing and construction sectors. In recent weeks, lead times for filling steel orders at American mills have lengthened, indicating more orders for the metal. The spot market price for coiled sheet steel is $893 a ton, up $93 from the end of September, according to steel market consulting firm CRU.
U.S. Steel also will start supplying about 750,000 tons of steel slabs next year to a Calvert, Ala., steel plant owned by rival ArcelorMittal, as part of a seven-year supply contract announced this past summer. The Granite City furnace restart comes at a
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