Swedish steelmaker SSAB has shut down blast furnace operations at its special steels facility in Oxelösund, Sweden. According to the company, the outage was unplanned and expected to last for two weeks.
"The decision to shut down was made after unusually high temperatures in the mantle of the blast furnace. This will be further investigated. The blast furnace was fully refurbished as recently as 2011, with additional work completed in 2016 and was thus fitted out to last until the conversion to electric arc furnace in 2025. Necessary measures are estimated to take around two weeks, followed by the restart of the furnace," said SSAB.
The result of the outage will mean repair costs, under-absorption and lower shipments, which will cost SSAB an estimated SEK 150 million, mostly impacting Q3 2018.
SSAB Special Steels will rely upon SSAB’s global production capacity to minimise delays to customers during the outage and is also looking to bring forward part of the planned maintenance scheduled for Q4.