Despite an expected increase in steel consumption in Argentina in 2017, from an estimated 4.3 million mt of finished steel in 2016 to 4.6 million mt in the year to come, Argentina’s Ternium Siderar is evaluating the possibility of restarting its No. 1 blast furnace.
“We’re still analyzing it,” Martin Berardi, CEO at Siderar, told SteelOrbis, while talking to reporters in the sidelines of the Alacero conference, held in Rio, Brazil, from October 25-26.
“We have two blast furnaces [in Argentina], and the smallest one [the blast furnace No. 1] is currently idled,” the executive said, adding the restart of the No. 1 equipment, located at the company’s General Savio mill, in the city of Ramallo, will depend on how strong growth in the next year will be.
Berardi said Siderar is currently operating at 80-85 percent its capacity, since the No. 2 blast furnace is assuming most of the company’s production needs, as a way to compensate lack of production at the company’s No. 1 equipment.
“We believe we’ll recover steel consumption in 2017, reaching levels similar to that of 2015. By H2 2016 we started to see some signals. The lowest points in steel consumption in Argentina this year were June and July, but then there was a slight growth in domestic demand with the return of the public investment,” he said.