ArcelorMittal is talking to the United Steelworkers union about idling operations, but no final decisions have been made.
"Several media mentions have appeared regarding the potential closure of Indiana Harbor West in East Chicago, Ind., speculating that we may be considering the shutdown of both 'upstream and downstream operations at Indiana Harbor West,' " spokesman William Steers said.
"While it's true that global economics, coupled with internal cost and productivity challenges, have placed significant pressure on our USA business and forced us to re-evaluate our footprint, no final decisions have been made with regard to a USA asset optimization plan."
The Luxembourg-based steelmaker says it has lost an average of $294 million a year in North America over the past five years, largely because a tsunami of imports that have caused steel prices to plunge by 50 percent here since 2008. Earlier this year, ArcelorMittal idled its electric arc furnace and rolling mill at Indiana Harbor Long Carbon in East Chicago.
Last year, the steelmaker idled the No. 2 galvanizing line at ArcelorMittal Indiana Harbor West, which was once the most productive in the world. The USW warned workers the company tentatively plans to idle No. 1 aluminizing line at the former LTV steel mill in December. A newer aluminizing line at ArcelorMittal's new AM/NS Calvert plant in Alabama would finish that steel instead.
Steelworkers also have heard rumblings the company might want to shut down the hot mill at Indiana Harbor West, or the No. 5 galvanizing line at Indiana Harbor East.
The steelmaker says it has no intentions of closing any blast furnaces in the United States, which would keep it from completely idling Indiana Harbor West. But it wants to run its operations more efficiently at a time when capacity utilization is hovering around 72 percent, or about 18 percentage points less than what industry analysts consider healthy.
"What we can say is that, there is no doubt that in order to optimize our assets, we must find ways to achieve higher levels of capacity utilization with no loss of total production or market share and do not anticipate any impact on our ability to meet customer demand," Steers said.
"Again, no final decisions have been made, and we are working closely with the United Steelworkers in Pittsburgh to identify how we can achieve higher utilization levels and reduce our operating costs."