Usiminas in Brazil Is Considering Restarting Its Blast Furnace in Mid-October.

According to the article, Usiminas, a Brazilian steel company, is considering restarting its No. 3 blast furnace in mid-October, which has been idle since April for modernization. The corporation made no remark on the restart date, other than to say that the remodeling work is nearly finished. It is the company's largest, with a capacity of 3 million tons per year, and the conversion process is expected to cost US$540 million. The original restart date was August 10, and the main cause for the delay was due to domestic market shortages. Domestic steel price increases eventually led to an increase in imports, which totaled 3.2 million tons in the first eight months of the year, 48.6% more than in the same period in 2022.