ArcelorMittal idles hot strip mill in northwest Indiana

EAST CHICAGO, Ind. (AP) - The world's largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal, has idled a hot strip mill at its northwestern Indiana complex as the company aims to take capacity offline as part of a push to make its U.S. operations more efficient.

Although production has ceased at the company's 84-inch hot strip mill at Indiana Harbor East Chicago, a United Steelworkers union official said none of the mill's 300 workers will be laid off.

United Steelworkers District 7 Director Mike Millsap told The (Munster) Times (http://bit.ly/1UHCpCC ) that the union is working to find jobs for the affected workers. He said the union is still in the bargaining phase, but the goal is to prevent any layoffs.

The move is part of ArcelorMittal's plans to restructure its U.S. operations by shutting down some finishing lines and investing in the remaining ones in an effort to increase efficiency, Millsap said.

The Luxembourg-based steelmaker, which lost $8 billion in 2015, considering all options to "optimize its assets" in the U.S., said ArcelorMittal spokeswoman Mary Beth Holdford.

"Action 2020 is a strategic roadmap that aims to achieve targeted financial improvements for the company by 2020," she said. "In the United States, efforts to support Action 2020 include asset and cost optimization as well as an improved portfolio of high added value products."

Although the company is reducing its presence in North America, it doesn't plan to lay anyone off, Holdford said.

"ArcelorMittal expects to optimize our assets in the United States without layoffs by leveraging natural attrition," she said.

The company recently closed a finishing line that had been under-used and doesn't expect to restart it, Millsap said. United Steelworkers District 7 is working to place the affected workers at other facilities in East Chicago, Burns Harbor or Riverdale.

More finishing lines will likely be shuttered as ArcelorMittal continues to address an overcapacity problem that was made worse by China's 112 million tons of exports last year, Millsap said.

In February, the steelmaker shut down its aluminizing line at Indiana Harbor West, but no workers lost their jobs because ArcelorMittal restarted its galvanizing line in the No. 2 Sheet Mill in East Chicago.

"There will be more of this," Millsap said. "This was part of their overall capital plan before we started bargaining."

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Information from: The Times, http://www.thetimesonline.com