SSAB brings Raahe blast furnace back online

Swedish-headquartered integrated steelmaker SSAB has confirmed that it has returned to production the blast furnace idled at the end of November at its plant in Raahe, Finland.

The company made the announcement during its 2019 financial results presentation. The furnace, with a capacity of 1.3 million tonnes/year of hot metal, restarted production at the beginning of this year, after a 6-week stoppage.

“Stock adjustments by customers on the European market are assessed to be over and our order intake improved towards the end of the quarter. This is expected to lead to increased shipments during the first quarter of 2020 and the blast furnace in Raahe has been back in operation since the start of the year,” the company explains in its full year 2019 report monitored by Kallanish.

Crude steel production for the year fell back by -5% to 7.623 million tonnes versus 8.028mt in 2018. Rolling production and shipments also fell on the same basis (see related article).