Luxembourg-based steelmaker ArcelorMittal has restarted its blast furnace A (BF A) at its Gijón steelworks in northern Spain after a two-day outage caused by a steam explosion on September 9, the company told Fastmarkets.
The steelmaker confirmed that the September 9 incident was caused by a burst water pipe that led to a steam explosion, possibly after water and steam became confined within a structural beam supporting the tuyere platform floor.
“There were no injuries and the damages were limited, on structural elements of the platform. No damage on the BF itself,” ArcelorMittal told Fastmarkets.
The furnace is currently operating normally, with the company adding that the incident has had no impact on customer deliveries or supplies from the Gijón site. Blast furnace B remained operational throughout the outage.
The restart comes amid increasing pressure on conventional steelmaking operations in Europe. Earlier this September, ArcelorMittal announced plans to end primary steelmaking at its Duisburg site in Germany by the end of 2027, citing declining local demand, low capacity utilization, limited export opportunities and high energy costs.
The company said it will close the Duisburg steelworks and billet mill, shifting the site to a rerolling model supplied with externally sourced billet.
ArcelorMittal had assessed several alternatives, including new pig iron supply arrangements and electric-arc-furnace-based steelmaking, but concluded that neither option was economically viable.
A recent study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) suggested that conventional blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) steelmaking could become economically unviable in Europe by 2040 due to rising carbon costs under the EU Emissions Trading System(ETS) and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), highlighting the challenges facing the region’s primary steel producers.
Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel wire rod (mesh quality), domestic, delivered Southern Europe, was €660-680 per tonne on September 9, unchanged week on week.
