Steel Market Production Cuts – As of today, Italian steelmaker Ilva will have to cut back production at its Taranto plant to upgrade its pollution control equipment. It is unclear how much production will decrease and the plant is already operating at only 70% capacity.

Steel Market Production Cuts – ArcelorMittal announced today that it no longer plans to invest €138 million in its Liege plant after failing to agree with unions over job losses.

Steel Market Production Cuts – ArcelorMittal announced on Friday that its Piombino facility in Italy will idle its pickling and cold-rolling lines in the last three months of 2012.

Steel Market Production Cuts – CISA issued an update on Friday on the overhauls being carried out as of September 13. It included outages or planned outages for 13 blast furnaces (5.53 mt), 32 rebar lines (870,000 tonnes), 14 plate lines (1.185 mt), 12 HRC lines (1.305 mt), 3 CRC lines (110,000 tonnes), 5 steel strip lines (122,000 tonnes), and 2 section steel lines (65,000 tonnes).

Steel Market Production Increases – Ukrainian steelmaker Metinvest announced on Friday, that repairs to hot rolled plate mill 3000 – at subsidiary Ilyich Iron and Steel Works – has been completed. The mill was idled for 15 days and has capacity of 2.0-2.1 m tpy.

Steel Market Production Increases – Gerdau announced an investment of $253m in its Peruvian subsidiary Siderperú on Friday. The investment includes a new rolling mill for rebar and wire rod that will increase capacity from 300,000 tpy to 1.2m tpy, as well as a new EAF that will add 360,000 tpy of liquid steel, bringing total liquid steel capacity up to 1 m tpy.

Steel Market Production Increases – Chinese steelmaker Hebei Zhihang Pipeline Equipment Manufacturing, set a 2012 production target of 120,000 – 150,000 tonnes of ERW from its new mill.

Sources: Steel Business Briefing, SteelOrbis, Reuters