The Mexican unit of the global steel giant, ArcelorMittal, will put into operation its blast furnace in the western city of Lázaro Cárdenas, in the Mexican state of Michoacán, after almost five months of inactivity. Thus, the company will restart the production of long steel products, the company reported in a press release.
“On October 16, 2024, the restart of the production of long products will begin at its plant in Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, with a capacity of 1.5 million tons (mt) per year,” the company said in a nightly press release.
The statement omitted to detail whether that 1.5 million mt production is from the blast furnace or from the rod plant located in the central city of Celaya, Guanajuato. The road distance between the two plants is 280 miles.
The blast furnace, prior to the blockade by the Miners' Union of Congressman Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, had a production capacity of 2.4 million mt per year.
That asset was inactive (loaded with steel) for 57 days. For some reason, not declared, the blast furnace remained without production for almost three more months after the union blockade.
Meanwhile, the Celaya steelworks, with two rolling mills, has an annual production capacity of 1.7 million mt.
With the incorporation of the manufacture of long products, ArcelorMittal Mexico resumes its total production capacity of 5.3 million mt of steel.
In 2023, it ended the year with a production of 3.9 million mt of crude steel and a production of 4.5 million mt of iron ore.
The information that the Miners' Union has yet to block is pending from the audit of ArcelorMittal Mexico's financial statements by accounting experts endorsed by the Ministry of Labor to verify whether the company correctly paid its workers' profits, according to information from the federal government released on August 16.