U.S. Steel tin mill future remains uncertain
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Six weeks after Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel Corp. (NYSE: X) idled its No. 5 tin line located at the Gary Works steel mill, the company has now idled the entire tin operation at the flagship steel mill indefinitely. Our partners at The Times of Northwest Indiana report about 240 workers were moved to other areas of the complex.
“Right now, there will be no layoffs associated with the idling, and employees have been reassigned to other areas,” said U.S. Steel spokesperson Amanda Malkowski. “We continue to monitor customer demand and market conditions to determine if additional adjustments are necessary to balance supply with demand.”
Malkowski says the Midwest Plant in Portage will continue to produce tin.
The publication says U.S. Steel has been cutting back on its tin-making operations for years as the market has shrunk. It idled the East Chicago Tin finishing plant in 2015 and then indefinitely in 2019. The still-shuttered tin mill once employed more than 360 workers.
The company says it is responding to changes in the market. Tin is used for a variety of products, such as paint cans, aerosol cans, and canned fruits, vegetables and soup. But the publication says a growing number of those products are packaged in plastic and aluminum containers.
Last month, U.S. Steel also idled Blast Furnace No. 8 at Gary Works because of market conditions as it looked to reduce capacity to stabilize prices and maintain a higher level of profitability.