Dunaferr restarting blast furnace today

Hungarian steelmaker Dunaferr is restarting a blast furnace today, and hopes to have its hot strip mill online in March.

The furnace has a capacity of around 800,000 t/yr, according to sources at the site, while the rolling capacity of the plant is around 2mn t/yr.

At present there is only enough raw material to operate the furnace for a few days, but more is expected to arrive. Sources suggest Liberty Steel could be supplying this raw material.

There is no plan to restart the other furnace at the site, so the company might use external slab to help feed the hot strip mill. Again, Liberty Steel will reportedly send 10,000t of slab from its Galati site to the mill.

Galati itself is not producing slab at present, with both of its furnaces idled. Market sources suggest Galati could restart a furnace by the end of this month or early in March.

By Colin Richardson