Polish plate mill Huta Czestochowa restarts steelmaking

On Friday, Polish plate mill Huta Czestochowa resumed steelmaking after having been idle for six months and aims to tap into the market from end-October.

Czestochowa resumed production after a quick, four-week commissioning project. Its restart marks the end of the first stage of the mill’s full return to the Polish steel market, said Marek Frydrych, managing director of Sunningwell International Polska, the Warsaw-based financial firm holding the lease for the steel mill.

The implementation of this task in such a short time was possible thanks to the extraordinary mobilization of all employees of Huta Czestochowa, their friends and support teams, said Frydrych.

In the following days, after the start of the electric arc furnace meltshop and casting of the first slabs, the mill will carry out the necessary tests related to quality assessment of slabs in order to establish what technical adjustments are needed before it proceeds to full-scale production including rolling.

The next stage – the actual return to the Polish plate market – is scheduled to begin at the very end of October.

Prior to the restart, Sunningwell planned to bring production back to the level that annualizes to 600,000-650,000 mt/year with two thirds of this destined for the Polish plate market, which absorbs 1.2 million-1.4 million mt/year, as Platts reported earlier.

— Ekaterina Bouckley