ArcelorMittal Poland closes coke oven battery in Krakow

At the end of 2023, the company switched the unit to hot preservation mode due to weak demand for steel

The Polish division of global steelmaker ArcelorMittal announces a complete shutdown of its coke oven battery at its steel plant in Krakow. The unit has been in hot mothballing mode since November 2023 due to weakening steel demand. This is stated in the company’s press release.

“The hot mothballing regime allowed us to resume coke production when market conditions improved. Unfortunately, this did not happen. It is very expensive to maintain the battery in this condition, mainly because of the cost of natural gas used to power the plant. It is not economically justified to continue this process in the hope that the situation will improve,” comments Wojciech Koszuta, CEO of ArcelorMittal Poland.

In addition, Koszuta notes that decarbonization plans in many industries will gradually reduce demand for coke in the coming years.

The majority of the unit’s 230-plus employees have been offered new jobs, and another 70 employees who supported the unit during the hot downtime will be offered transfer to other units.

“Long-term, experienced employees are the backbone of our company, so we always try to offer them jobs in other positions, finance retraining and compensate for possible business trips to another of our locations,” emphasizes Stanisław Bohl, HR Director at ArcelorMittal Poland.

As GMK Center reported earlier, ArcelorMittal Poland reduced steel production by 10.3% year-on-year – to 3.07 million tons in 2023. Coke production amounted to 3.23 million tons, down 12.8% y/y.

Over the past 20 years, ArcelorMittal has invested more than PLN 10.5 billion ($2.6 billion) in Polish assets. A significant portion of the funds was allocated to environmental projects. The investments helped reduce dust emissions by the company’s Polish division by 90% and carbon dioxide by 42% compared to 2004.

ArcelorMittal Group intends to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. The interim goal for European plants is to reduce CO2 emissions by 35% by 2030 compared to 2018.