More delays for Big River Steel galv line

Big River Steel extended the downtime of its galvanizing line after additional maintenance needs were uncovered during repairs that followed a substation failure.

During the original 10-14 day repair period, additional issues were uncovered on the 550,000st/yr galvanizing line that required further maintenance over an incremental 7-10 day period. This puts the return of the Arkansas-based steelmaker's galvanizing operations between 17 to 23 September.

Big River Steel's other finishing and steel-producing processes remain at or above rated capacity, according to the customer update notice on its website.

Big River Steel's $700mn expansion to double hot-rolled coil production capacity at the Osceola, Arkansas, mill was moved up into November or December of 2020 from a precious timetable of early 2021. The company plans to update customers on the project's ahead-of-schedule status at the end of the month.

By Will Ehrhardt