Steel Market Production Cuts – The Italian government has ordered the steelmaker to obey the order given on September 17 and shut down the Taranto plant by October 11. The facility has been running at 70% of capacity, or 22,000 tonnes of pig iron per day, since the end of July.

Steel Market Production Cuts – Essar Steel Minnesota is backtracking on their originally proposed slab plant due to “current market conditions” and will not make any plans to build the new facility until conditions improve.

Steel Market Production Increases – Chinese steelmaker Yuzhong Iron and Steel Co commenced operations at a new 2,800 cubic meter blast furnace with a designed capacity of about 2.3 mtpy.

Steel Market Production Increases – Middle Eastern steelmaker Moulds & Metals is targeting 2H13 for the start-up of a new 250,000 tpy wire rod mill in Poti, Georgia.  To accommodate the new mill, designed capacity for billet will be doubled to 400,000 tpy.

Steel Market Production Increases – Italian steelmaker Ferriere Nord commissioned a new 1m tpy wire rod mill in Osoppo at the end of September, replacing an outdated rolling mill with less capacity.

Sources: Steel Business Briefing, SteelOrbis, American Metal Market