U.S. Steel is eyeing an April 1 restart of the second of its two blast furnaces at Granite City Works, but it could come sooner, the local steelworkers union president said.
“It's definitely going to be a lot of hard work — but, at the end of the road, it's going to pay off because Nippon has not got to see what we can do with primary operations,” said Craig McKey, who leads United Steelworkers Local 1899.
The recently acquired U.S. Steel, purchased by the Japanese firm Nippon, announced last week it would reignite the blast furnace due to customer demand. The news provided a victory for the Metro East community and steel mill, which many had worried was destined for permanent closure.
McKey said his phone has already been inundated with calls from workers laid off in 2023, when U.S. Steel first idled the blast furnace, asking about jobs. The company will prioritize anyone who had quit, retired or been let go.
“There's going to be a lot of them that come back,” he said.
Restarting the second blast furnace is likely to cost U.S. Steel between $25 million and $30 million. Management said that cash will not come out of the $11 billion that the Japanese have promised to invest in other existing U.S. Steel facilities, McKey said.
Those improvements could have also played a factor in U.S. Steel’s reasoning to start making steel in Granite City, McKey said.
Gary Works, one of the steelmaker’s biggest mills located in suburban Chicago, will not produce steel for an estimated 100 days while it undergoes renovations.
When officials from the Biden administration evaluated the nearly $15 billion deal last year, Nippon vowed to sell its 50% stake in an Alabama facility to the other owner, ArcelorMittal, a Luxembourg-based corporation. The Japanese company did so to avoid antitrust concerns because Arcelor is a U.S. Steel competitor.
After Nippon finalized its purchase, Arcelor completed the acquisition of the facility in June, according to the company. The deal included a seven-year agreement for Nippon to supply the Alabama facility with “domestically melted and poured” slabs.
While Granite City Works will not supply any of the steel produced next year to that Alabama facility, U.S. Steel will need to increase its production elsewhere, McKey said.
Granite City Works will need to hire roughly 400 employees to operate the blast furnace, according to U.S. Steel. When fully staffed, the mill will employ 1,200 to 1,300 people, McKey said.
Currently, employees are only processing steel slabs shipped in from other locations. The other blast furnace has been idled since 2019.
While last week’s announcement didn’t include any assurances beyond June 2027 — when protections from the national security agreement between the federal company and Nippon run out — McKey said he believes this decision will keep the Granite City mill open for a couple of years.
“It’s great news for a lot of people and for a lot of reasons,” he said.
