BANKRUPTCY COURT Lenders will pay CSC's electric bill

YOUNGSTOWN -- Lenders for CSC Ltd. have agreed to pay Ohio Edison $320,634 for electricity the shuttered steel mill used in April and May and the company is terminating its high-usage agreement with the utility.
Attorneys for CSC, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January and closed in April, said the company has been paying a monthly fee of $114,000 to Ohio Edison in exchange for a very low per-kilowatt rate.
That arrangement isn't practical, they said, now that the mill has ceased operations and is using very little electricity.
Jeffrey Baddeley, a CSC attorney, said the company is continuing to search for a buyer willing to operate the mill. He would not comment on the progress of the search.
CSC employees are also investigating the feasibility of buying the mill under an employee stock ownership plan.
Ohio Star Forge: Legal counsel for CSC also said, at a hearing Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Youngstown, that planning is under way to separate CSC's electric meters from meters of Ohio Star Forge, a forging company operating on the steel mill property.
Bill Letson, a Warren attorney representing Ohio Star Forge, said the company was originally formed as a joint venture by Daido Steel and Copperweld Steel, then-owner of CSC, and shared utilities with CSC. Now an independent company, Ohio Star employs about 90 people.
CSC was Trumbull County's fourth largest employer until it ceased operations April 13, leaving about 1,300 workers jobless.