Liberty Galati restarts blast furnace No. 5 after shutdown in January

The company notes an improvement in demand for thick sheet and hot-rolled coil

Liberty Galati, a Romanian steel plant that is part of the GFG Alliance group of companies owned by Sanjeev Gupta, announces the resumption of blast furnace No. 5 after it was suspended in January this year. Kallanish reports this with reference to the company’s data.

The company is currently increasing the furnace’s capacity. After reaching the planned capacity of the unit, the company plans to resume the operation of rolling lines, including at plants in the Czech Republic and Hungary. The company notes an improvement in demand for heavy plates and hot-rolled coils.

«Despite the challenging conditions in the European market, Liberty Galati has managed to overcome a number of difficulties over the past few months and restore its core production facilities, which will benefit both the Romanian plant and the company’s other European operations. We expect that this year’s improvement in the steel market will give Europe the necessary impetus and a certain momentum to our operations,» said Teuns Victor, CEO of Liberty’s European division.

On October 17, 2023, it became known that Liberty Steel had shut down the only operating blast furnace at the Romanian Liberty Galati plant. The main reasons for the shutdown at that time were severe weather conditions in the Black Sea and a sharp drop in the water level in the Danube. This affected the supply of sufficient raw materials for the safe operation of the unit. Sources suggested that the restart would take place on October 24.

The company announced the restart of the blast furnace in November. The restart process began at the beginning of the month, and the unit was expected to reach its design capacity within a few days, but the full-fledged operation of the BF began only in mid-December. The plant planned to focus on the production of semi-finished products.

In January 2024, the unit was suspended again. The shutdown occurred during the Christmas holidays amid interruptions in the supply of raw materials. The company continued to produce hot-rolled coils from imported slabs and expected to resume full operations in the coming weeks.