Works to repair the No. 4 blast furnace at ArcelorMittal’s Dunkirk plant “are near completion”, the steelmaker told S&P Global Commodity Insights on July 3, without specifying a date.
The company had been aiming to restart the 3 million mt/year blast furnace at site in northwest France in the third week of June, after operations stopped on March 30 due to an ignition-caused fire.
Originally, ArcelorMittal had planned to restart the blast furnace at the end of May, but that date was also delayed.
ArcelorMittal Dunkirk has three blast furnaces with a combined maximum output of 7 million mt/year. No.4 is the largest. Blast furnace No. 3 can produce 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 blast furnace A on March 27, ArcelorMittal told S&P Global Commodity Insights on June 27 that it was aiming for a restart near the end of the week starting July 2.
Author Annalisa Villa
