ArcelorMittal Poland, a subsidiary of Luxembourg-based steel producer ArcelorMittal, has announced that it has completely shut down its only coke oven battery at its Kraków steel plant.
Late last year, the company had suspended and put the coke oven in question into hot conservation mode due to low demand and the ratio of the price of coking coal to the price of coke, as SteelOrbis reported previously.
However, Wojciech Koszuta, CEO of ArcelorMittal Poland, explained that although maintaining the coke oven battery in hot conservation mode would pave the way for the potential resumption of coke production when market conditions improved, the cost of natural gas that is used to power the battery surged, thereby making it uneconomical. Additionally, the other reason behind the decision is that global decarbonization efforts will gradually reduce the coke requirement in the coming years.