While details are scant, the new Japanese owner of Granite City’s steel mill committed on Wednesday to not reduce production capacity in the Metro East for two years.
Nippon Steel, which just completed a partnership deal with U.S. Steel, will maintain current production at Granite City Works, according to a U.S. Steel spokesperson.
Both blast furnaces at the former U.S. Steel mill remain idled. Earlier this week, Craig McKey, the president of United Steelworkers Local 1899, said the mill employs roughly 900 employees.
Representatives from the steelworkers union could not be immediately reached for comment on Wednesday.
Nippon’s acknowledgement that it will maintain the status quo at the Metro East mill for at least the next two years provides the first public remarks either company has made about Granite City Works’ future since U.S. Steel and the Japanese company first announced their intentions in late 2023.
Granite City Works employees had been left in limbo these past couple of years — waiting for a final decision about the Nippon partnership amid a separate local deal that could permanently end steelmaking in town.
An official with SunCoke Energy Inc., which operates a neighboring facility in Granite City, said earlier this week the company plans to forge ahead with its proposal to repurpose the blast furnaces into granulators that would melt iron to fuel other electric furnaces.
Union leadership estimated that selling the blast furnaces would leave only 500 jobs at the mill.
U.S. Steel and Nippon have declined to address questions regarding SunCoke’s offer and whether Granite City’s mill will see any of the $11 billion of investments Nippon promised to make as part of the deal.
Illinois U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, said some of Nippon’s cash should trickle down to the mill in her congressional district.
The partnership between Nippon and U.S. Steel gives the federal government the right to consent to “certain decisions on closure or idling of U. S. Steel’s existing U.S. manufacturing facilities,” according to a national security agreement.
