Pittsburgh steel company and US Steel, hopes to resume steel production at the second largest steel mill in the USA early next week.
"on 27 November, US Steel reported a leak of process water, which led to flooding in our factory near our Gary Works blast furnaces", - said the press Secretary of the US Steel Amanda Malkowski. "As a precautionary measure, we stopped the emergency blast furnace and steel production to protect our people, assets and the environment, until the issue is resolved".
Director of the United Steelworkers Mike Millsap said that the leak came from massive water pipes, which delivers water from lake Michigan to the plant for cooling blast furnaces and other steelmaking equipment.
the Smelting of iron was immediately discontinued, as even a minor amount of water, once in the melt can cause explosions and destruction.
thanksgiving steelmakers worked around the clock, pumping out water from the units of the plant, which can produce up to 7.5 million tons of pig iron per year. The flood was so significant that the staff cars were almost completely submerged.
Gary Works is located along the shoreline of lake Michigan and is the largest factory of US Steel.
"We expect that the first blast furnace is put into operation again at the weekend. It is expected that by the middle of the week Gary Works will return to normal operation mode. These works must not adversely affect clients," said Malkowski.
Accident of this magnitude occurred for the first time after its commissioning in 1906.
After the news about stopping the blast-furnace production, the company's shares US Steel < / span>fell nearly 10%.
Steel mill operates four blast furnaces. Gary Works produces hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized steel products for automakers, manufacturers of household appliances and construction projects.
At the ironworks also produced tin blanks for food packaging, aerosol cans and paint cans.
