Mittal USA closes blast furnace after accident

Part of Mittal Steel USA's Indiana Harbor plant has been shut down after a molten iron spill sparked a fire in the plant's No. 3 production shop Friday. Approximately 200 tons of the liquid metal spilled onto a charging pit from a giant ladle after the ladle's tilting mechanism became entangled with a crane's hoist, starting a fire that took firefighters four hours to extinguish. Two workers received treatment for minor injuries, but both later returned to work. Damage to the facility is still being assessed, though industry insiders are already predicting that it will be at least a month until production at the No. 3 furnace restarts. If this is indeed the case, Mittal will lose a minimum of 250'000 nt in iron production. The No. 3 is the only blast furnace at Indiana Harbor West, but the two blast furnaces at Indiana Harbor East are still producing steel. The three Indiana Harbor furnaces each produce about 1 million nt of steel per year.