Restart delayed for Severstal plant

MARTINS FERRY - A lack of metal coming from Severstal Sparrows Point facility in Maryland is causing the announced restart at Severstal Wheeling's Martins Ferry mill to be delayed.

In December, the Severstal North America announced the mill would restart because of an increase in customer orders for coated light flat roll steel products.

Cold-rolled steel from Severstal Wheeling's Yorkville mill, as well as other Severstal North America plants, is to be treated with a zinc coating at the Martins Ferry plant.

According to a company official and the United Steelworker's Local 1238, the originally scheduled start-up date of Jan. 25 is being pushed back to sometime in late February.

"It's been moved back two or three weeks because of the troubles they're having at Sparrows Point. They just don't have the metal, but once we get the metal, we're going to start back up," said John Waugh, president, Local 1238. "And they will start calling people for their physicals the week before we go back to work."

Waugh said there are about 30 people currently working at the mill, getting it prepared for the restart including electricians and maintenance workers.

"We're going to get there, it's just going to be delayed about a month," Waugh said.

Meanwhile, a Severstal spokesperson confirms that the plant is currently operating with about 200 people, but those numbers can change based on the number of orders.