Following a fire in October at Fos-sur-Mer that resulted in a complete production stoppage, ArcelorMittal has resumed production at the mill in southern France, Kallanish learns from the company.
Blast furnace No.2 was restarted in mid-December with the first slab produced on the night of 21-22 December for a Greek customer, marking a key step in the restart of operations. The slab measured 6 metres in length, 1,620mm in width and 229mm in thickness. Rolling operations have also resumed, converting the slab into steel plate with thicknesses ranging from 1.5-25mm depending on the product.
Following the fire, production at the site had initially been curtailed and then almost completely halted, with the exception of the coke plant, the steelmaker reveals in a note.
Due to the fire, Fos-sur-Mer had to redirect certain orders to other plants in France to minimise customer impact. It sourced slab externally to meet year-end delivery commitments (see Kallanish passim).
