British Steel said Thursday it plans to resume production at its Queen Victoria blast furnace, with the unit to reach full capacity by mid-August, after an outage in early July forced the company to buy steel for contract sales.
The Scunthorpe-based long steels maker had been in the market for medium sections, buying steel from traders to meet delivery timetables with customers.
Purchasing of steel during the outage was described as in line with what was required, a spokeswoman for the company said.
"The recovery process is making good progress and we plan to be back to full operating capacity by the middle of the month," the company said in a statement.
The Queen Victoria furnace suffered a technical problem and was idled, British Steel said on July 4.
British Steel operated the Queen Anne furnace at the same plant at full capacity when the idling was reported, with the unit one of two blast furnaces active at the site.
The company has 4.5 million mt/year of crude steel capacity through four blast furnaces.
The company buys coking coal, PCI and iron ore to use at its coke and sinter plants to feed into its blast furnaces.
The company sells sections, wire rod, rail and special profiles.
