Liberty Steel Georgetown wire rod mill shut by fire

Liberty Steel's wire rod mill in Georgetown, South Carolina, suffered a fire Saturday evening that will shut it down "for a few days."

The fire at the 500,000 t/yr (551,000 st/yr) electric arc-furnace-based (EAF) wire rod mill in South Carolina was caused after a spill from a tundish - a container used to feed molten metal into a mold - damaged electrical circuits and sparked the fire.

The company said it has a supply of extra prime billets and that rolling operations will continue as normal. The wire rod rolling mill can produce 680,000 t/yr. The mill consumes an estimated 30,000 gt/month of ferrous scrap.

Liberty Steel is part of Liberty House Group, a London-based international industrial and metals company.

The Georgetown facility had been idled before Liberty Steel bought it from ArcelorMittal in late-2017.