Big River to restart galv line over weekend

Arkansas steelmaker Big River Steel plans to restart its galvanized line this weekend after an unplanned outage from electrical issues shut it for more than three weeks.

The electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaker is finishing drying out the refractory and is planning to recharge its zinc pot in the next few days. Shipments from the 550,000 short ton (st)/yr line are expeced to resume over the weekend.

The outage began after the mill had a 24 hour-long power loss that began on 30 August. When the galvanized line turned back on, its electrical system failed and subsequent work found additional problems that needed to be addressed.

The unplanned outage for the galvanized line came in the midst of an increase in flat-rolled prices that began in mid-August. The Argus assessment for hot-dipped galvanized (HDG) coil has increased by 26pc to $795/st for the week ending 22 September from a low of $630/st recorded for the week ending 4 August.

Market participants said that galvanized supply in the US is tight through the rest of 2020. Auto production that restarted after a two-month outage due to Covid-19-related shutdowns is driving much of the demand.

Scrap buyer departs

Martin Baker, who joined Big River Steel in 2018 and in June was announced as the new metallics procurement and conversion manager for Koch Metallics in a deal with Big River Steel, has left the company.

The deal made Koch Metallics the exclusive procurement agent of ferrous scrap and metallics raw materials for Big River Steel.

Baker originally came from Alabama-based scrap broker Jefferson Iron and Metal.

By Rye Druzin