Severstal won’t lay off workers during planned maintenance

By Don Shilling

Workers will be handling repair work rather than outside contractors.

WARREN — Severstal Warren will be temporarily closing large parts of its steel mill for planned maintenance but will keep workers on the job, a spokeswoman said.

Reports in industry publications said this week that the mill, which used to be known as WCI Steel, was considering layoffs because of declining demand. Those reports were just speculation, said Betty Kovach, public affairs manager for the Warren mill.

Union leaders at Severstal plants in the Wheeling, W.Va., area said this week they are expecting layoffs because of volume reductions related to a slowing economy. Housing starts and car sales are down.

One report said Severstal was cutting production in the U.S. by 30 percent, in Russia by 25 percent and in Italy by 30 percent.

Kovach said the work being done in Warren is planned maintenance work.

The first project includes relining of vessels that carry molten iron in the steel-making process. That will require the shutdown of the blast furnace, followed by the basic oxygen furnace and the continuous caster.

Kovach said the blast furnace will be shut down Friday, with the other two departments closing a day or so later.

Those workers will remain on the job because they will be handling the relining of the vessels, performing maintenance work elsewhere in the mill and attending training, she said.

The mill plans to begin producing metal again Nov. 11.

The galvanizing line in the finishing end of the mill also will be shut down for maintenance. That project will last about two weeks and will begin in mid-November, Kovach said.

As with the vessel relining, the mill will use its own workers to perform the work instead of outside contractors, so no one will be laid off, Kovach said.

The mill has 1,050 hourly workers.

Severstal, a Russian steelmaker that has expanded its U.S. operations, bought the mill earlier this year for $140 million from a group of bondholders that brought WCI Steel out of bankruptcy court protection in 2006.

shilling@vindy.com