Liberty Steel is idling its Georgetown, South Carolina, wire rod mill for three months due to Covid-19-related declines in demand.
The mill's rolling operations will close and be kept in "care and maintenance" so they can be reopened when the market improves. While the mill had a rolling capacity of 827,000 short tons (st)/yr, Liberty had indicated in the past that it was producing at much lower than its nameplate capacity. Liberty had been targeting an increase in production to 441,000 st/yr.
It is the latest setback for a mill that UK-based Liberty hoped to upgrade in order to boost production in Georgetown as part of its expansion in the US.
Liberty had closed Georgetown's melt shop in September, and in February the company shelved plans to build a new electric arc furnace (EAF) with 551,000 st/yr of capacity.
The Georgetown mill had been supplied by semi-finished steel billets from Liberty's steel mill in Peoria, Illinois, which will now fulfill all customer orders for wire rod.
While no other Liberty operations have closed due to Covid-19-related demand issues, Liberty told Argus the company's Peoria mill idled for a few days last week, and is now back up and running.
