Russia's largest steel maker Evraz to idle US steel mill

Evraz, Russia's biggest steel producer, yesterday said that its North American division will suspend operations at its 500,000 tonne-capacity steel mill in the US due to subdued market demand and high volume of imports.

Over the next two months, about 375 employees will complete processing and shipping the existing inventory at its steel plant in Claymont, Delaware, before preparing the mill for idling.

The move comes after the London-listed company idled its Italian plate mill and announced that it would sell its South African Highveld mill and its Czech Vitkovice steel plant.

Evraz said that it will consider restarting operations at Claymont as soon as the market conditions improve.

Evraz does not expect any adverse financial effect on its operations in North America as a result of this action, and customers of the Claymont mill will be served by its plant in Portland, Oregon, and Regina, Saskatchewan.

"We appreciate our employees' efforts to operate Evraz Claymont as efficiently as possible," said John Zanieski, executive vice president - flat products and recycling. "Unfortunately, market conditions continue to be challenging and low market visibility makes it difficult to foresee when positive changes will occur.''

All of the mill's employees, with the exception of a small crew who will remain to maintain the site, have been issued Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN).

Evraz Claymont makes steel plate and custom plate products for industrial customers. Total production volumes in H1 2013 and for the whole of 2012 were 171.5 thousand metric tonnes and 348 thousand metric tonnes, respectively.