ArcelorMittal to restart Dunkirk BF No.4 in third week of June

ArcelorMittal plans to restart its BF No.4 at Dunkirk in northwest France in the third week of June, a company spokesperson told S&P Global Commodity Insights on May 24, after operations at the 3 million mt/year blast furnace stopped on March 30 due to an ignition-caused fire.

ArcelorMittal had aimed to restart the Dunkirk BF No.4 at the end of May, but the restart had to be delayed as it took longer than expected to repair the damage from the fire, the spokesperson said.

ArcelorMittal Dunkirk is equipped with three blast furnaces with a combined maximum output of 7 million mt/year. No.4 is the largest. BF No.3 can make 1.5 million mt/year and was restarted recently after being idled since mid-September 2022.

At Gijon in Spain, where the company suffered another fire at its Blast Furnace A on March 27, reiterated that the aim is to restart production in mid to late June.

The company has two blast furnaces at Gijon with a combined 4.5 million mt/year capacity. BF B is working normally.

The satellite plants Etxebarri, Lesaka and Sagunto, linked to the Gijon site, are also operating. They are still nevertheless affected by the BF A incident and a temporary lay-off plan, which has been agreed with the unions, has been applied depending on the needs of each facility, the company spokesperson said.

Nonetheless, ArcelorMittal confirmed that it is “making every effort to supply customers from its mills across Europe, including the sourcing of materials from the group’s operations in Brazil, South Africa, and India.”

Platts, part of S&P Global Insights, assessed hot-rolled coil in Northwest Europe down Eur5/mt on day at Eur755/mt ($813.44/mt) ex-works Ruhr on May 23.

Author Annalisa Villa