ArcelorMittal, the world's top steelmaker, will temporarily close a blast furnace at its plant in Dabrowa Gornicza, Poland, due to weaker steel demand in Europe, the company said on Friday. Since early September, the Luxembourg-based group has made several major cutbacks to its European steel operations, including the permanent closure of two furnaces at its Liege plant and the idling of production in Germany and Spain due to flagging demand and a weaker economic outlook.
"Having analysed order intake for the coming months, the company has decided to temporarily shut down blast furnace no. 3 in its plant in Dabrowa Gornicza," ArcelorMittal said in a statement, adding that the furnace would restart as soon as market conditions allow. "The other two furnaces (one in Krakow and one in Dabrowa Gornicza) remain in operation."
ArcelorMittal is Poland's largest steel producer, and the blast furnace it plans to close produces 2.2 million tonnes of crude steel per year, nearly 30 percent of its crude steel output in Poland. An ArcelorMittal spokeswoman had said on Thursday the company was considering scaling back production at the Polish plant because of challenging market conditions.
High volumes of steel came out of Europe in the first half of the year, but weaker demand, low prices and destocking have hit sales, leading ArcelorMittal and other European producers to cut capacity. In 2010, ArcelorMittal produced 92,629,000 tonnes of steel, 37 percent of it in western Europe and 11 percent in central and eastern Europe.
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