One of Dunaferr’s blast furnaces is beyond repair — ArgusMedia

The first blast furnace of the Hungarian steel plant Dunaferr, which was stopped in the summer of 2022, cannot be repaired and will not be started again. ArgusMedia informs about it with the reference to sources close to the company.

As the publication notes, the other furnace will be restarted in the coming weeks. However, it is still unclear where the raw materials will come from. From December 2022, coking coal for Dunaferr will be supplied by Liberty Steel to avoid shutdown of the plant’s coke batteries. The second furnace needs to be restarted before a prolonged shutdown makes the process impossible.

The government of Hungary during the next six months will pay wages at the ISD Dunaferr steel plant in the amount of $44.8 million. According to Viktor Orbán, the working group, which includes a deputy from the ruling party from the Dunaujvaros region, where the enterprise is located, will make efforts in the next six months to find an investor who would turn Dunaferr into a viable business.

At the end of December 2022, the Municipal Court of Budapest made a decision to eliminate steel mill ISD Dunaferr. The plant received a temporary administration.

ArgusMedia reported, that in January 2023 the UK’s Liberty Steel was likely to signed a contract with the Dunaferr liquidator in order to get the opportunity to manage the enterprise for 3 months. At the same time, the company and the liquidator of the enterprise refused to comment.

The steel plant has been idle since the third quarter of 2022. In August and September last year, the company stopped the operation of two blast furnaces with a total capacity of 1.2 million tons per year due to interruptions in the supply of coking coal.

Traders and industry sources name several candidates for Hungarian Dunaferr: Duferco, Liberty Steel Group, Ukrainian group Metinvest and Chinese Hesteel, which owns the Zelezara Smederevo plant in Serbia.

At the beginning of 2023, Metinvest Group expressed interest in the acquisition of the Dunaferr steel mill, applying to the Hungarian government. The steel plant can provide a number of synergies for the Ukrainian company and corresponds to its strategy, allowing full use of its own raw materials – iron ore concentrate, pellets and coking coal. In addition, the European asset will provide Metinvest with its own supply of slabs for processing assets.