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Source: The Toronto Star

ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel maker, unveiled a plan yesterday to cut $4 billion (U.S.) in costs in five years and said it was preparing to reduce production by up to 15 per cent to support prices.

The company, formed from the 2006 merger of Arcelor and Mittal, said that its bid to ensure cost leadership in the sector would focus on employee productivity, reducing energy consumption and decreasing input costs.

Full story at the Toronto Star >>

By Tom Stundza | Source: Purchasing.com

ArcelorMittal also will spend $160 million to buy the Monessen Coke Plant in Monessen, Pa., from Koppers to secure more of the baked coal fuel needed to fire steel furnaces.

Read the full story at Purchasing.com >>

by ANDREA HOLECEK | Source: NWI Times

The agreement, reached Saturday, follows the pattern set earlier this month by the USW’s pact with U.S. Steel Corp, and comes just over two days prior to the expiration of the current contract at 11:59 p.m. Monday, said Jim Robinson, USW District 7 director.

If ratified by the 14,000 USW members who work at ArcelorMittal’s 14 domestic facilities, the agreement will provide for a one-time $6,000 bonus per worker, a $1 her hour wage increase for the first year of the contract and a 4 percent wage increase for each of the following years, Robinson said. The agreement also provides a significant reduction in the cost of health care for union retirees, he said.

Health care co-payments would be reduced to $70 for each claim for those under 65 years of age, and to $35 for those who are Medicare eligible.

…the tentative agreement also includes an increase in the company’s pension contribution from $1.80 to $2.65 per hour, company contributions to a retiree fund for former employees of Acme, Bethlehem, Georgetown and LTV and increased profit sharing.

Read the full story, dozens of local comments at the NWI Times >>

Source: USW

The United Steelworkers (USW) today announced that the union has reached tentative agreement on a new, four-year contract with ArcelorMittal USA.

“Our members and retirees at ArcelorMittal now have the opportunity to enjoy the employment security, economic security and retirement security they earned through years of hard work and sacrifice,” said USW International President Leo W. Gerard. “These members’ unwavering, long-term solidarity and support for our bargaining committee has been rewarded.”

Over the next several weeks, about 14,000 USW-represented hourly production, maintenance, office and technical employees at ArcelorMittal facilities in eight states will discuss the proposed agreement with their negotiating committees before voting on whether to accept or reject the proposed four-year contract. Read the rest of this entry »

Source: Post-Tribune

BURNS HARBOR — An ArcelorMittal supervisor lost both legs Wednesday when a rail car carrying coal inside the Burns Harbor plant rolled over him, the state Department of Labor confirmed.

… Union leaders with the United Steelworkers are negotiating a new contract with the multinational steel corporation to replace a 2003 agreement that expires this month.

Workplace safety issues have been featured prominently in the talks after a rise in serious and fatal accidents since the former Mittal Steel took over the plants in Burns Harbor and East Chicago three years ago.

Read the full story at the Post-Tribune >>

Source: NWI Times

An iron producing supervisor at ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor was badly injured Wednesday while working on coal rail cars at the mill.

James Dolph, 56, of LaPorte, was airlifted to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Ill., where he remained in critical condition Friday at Advocate Christ Medical Center.

Details of the accident were not available.

In a statement, ArcelorMittal stated a joint investigation — with management and the United Steelworkers of America — was immediately launched after the accident. The investigation is ongoing.

“Our thoughts and best wishes go out to the family and friends of the injured,” ArcelorMittal said in the statement.

“The health and safety of our work force will always be the No. 1 priority at ArcelorMittal.”

Full story, post your comments at the NWI Times >>

Source: International Herald Tribune

Steelmaker ArcelorMittal is buying a second West Virginia coal mine operator.

Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal said Monday it has a deal to acquire Concept Group, owner of 57 million tons of metallurgical-grade coal in West Virginia. Terms were not disclosed.

A month ago, ArcelorMittal purchased Mid Vol Coal Group, which has 85 million tons of reserves in Virginia and West Virginia. ArcelorMittal says Concept Group’s operations are next to Mid Vol’s.

Related: Cleveland-Cliffs shareholder unhappy with Alpha deal - Reuters UK

By Yana Morris and Michael Ross | Source: FT.com/dealReporter

Prior to announcing a sale to Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF) on Wednesday, Alpha Natural Resources (ANR) had been holding informal discussions with two foreign companies since the beginning of the year, a source close to the deal, but not close to the foreign companies, told dealReporter. ArcelorMittal was understood to be one of these companies.

On Thursday Harbinger Capital Partners, Cleveland-Cliffs’ largest shareholder with a 18.36% stake, announced it was opposed to the deal.

Given the two-thirds vote needed from Cleveland-Cliffs shareholders to approve the deal, Harbinger may have a good chance of swaying an outcome.

A long-term ANR shareholder commented that CLF’s price was insufficient. It was his opinion that ANR’s consensus numbers underestimate the company’s true potential, and that the target would be getting the short end of the stick if the deal with CLF is culminated.

Whether the deal goes through or not, the source contended that the greater issue at hand is the destiny of CLF, given the stringent conditions to the closing of its ANR purchase and the fact that its line of business is in hot demand for global steel producers.

Read the full story at FT.com >>

Source: Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Sunday that billionaire steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal has been elected as an independent director at the world’s largest investment bank.

Mittal, who is chairman and chief executive of the world’s largest steel producer, ArcelorMittal SA, joined Goldman Sachs’ 13-member board Saturday…

Read the full story at the AP >>

Related Must-Read: Heavy Industries Joining Stampede to Raise Prices; Posco and Dow Chemical Follow ‘Global Trend’ - RedOrbit

Stewart Bailey and Dale Crofts | Source: LiveMint

Chief executive of ArcelorMittal Lakshmi Mittal said the world may be facing its first steel shortage in decades because of accelerating demand and a lack of investment when the metal was trading at lower prices.

“There is short supply; all steel companies are running at full capacity,” Mittal said in an interview in New York. “We’re facing for the first time in decades a potential shortage of steel.”

The “volatile years of boom and bust” in steel prices have been relegated to the past, Mittal said. Users of steel will have to “adjust to the new reality and the new pricing environment.”

Mittal discusses current company strategy at LiveMint >>

by Tim Huber | Source: Forbes

ArcelorMittal said Monday it has agreed to buy Mid Vol Coal Group, which owns approximately 85 million tons of reserves in Central Appalachia. ArcelorMittal is already the largest customer of Mid Vol, which produced 1.5 million tons of coal last year from West Virginia and Virginia mines, ArcelorMittal said.

ArcelorMittal’s U.S. acquisition focuses on metallurgical-grade coal, which is used to make coke for steelmaking. Metallurgical coal prices have soared from less than $100 a ton a year ago to as much as $250 a ton this year.

“This acquisition further increases our upstream self sufficiency in a primary raw material during a time when metallurgical coking coal demand on a global scale remains strong,” Chief Financial Officer Aditya Mittal said in a statement.

Read the full story at Forbes.com >>

By Jeff Manes | Source: Post-Tribune

PORTER — Nearly 300 American-made Harley-Davidsons were parked outside of Leroy’s Hot Stuff recently.

Many of the bikes were owned by members of trade unions who had gathered for a poker run and raffle.

“A good portion of these bikers here today work in the mill,” said Stefan Cervik. “We want to have a memorial built for the steel workers from ArcelorMittal’s Burns Harbor plant who have been killed on the job.”

“The monument will have the deceased workers’ names on it,” Cervik said. “God forbid, we’ll be able to add names to it if necessary. We’ve had two people lose their lives just recently.

“One of the fellas who got killed out there was a good friend of mine — David Reeves. He’s sorely missed. I went to the union hall to see what we have to remember people by; there’s an outdated plaque with gold name tags. I just felt, as great a union as we are, we could do better.

“I asked my union president at Local 6787 (Paul Gipson) if we could have something done. He agreed to help me, but I had to raise the funds myself. I’ve been on this quest now since about 2005.”

Stephan Dubovich lives in Hebron, but grew up in Gary. He retired from “Ma Beth” — Bethlehem Steel, which owned the Burns Harbor plant before ArcelorMittal. He was on the job when one of his workmates lost her life in the coke plant.

“You feel so helpless,” Dubovich said. “It’s a terrible feeling. They had to cut a hole out of the bottom of the hopper to let all the coal run out so they could recover her body.

“What are you going to do? There was a young kid who died right there in that same place — dust explosion. He burned to death.”

Read the full story and how you can help at the Post-Tribune >>

Source: The Canadian Press

Steelmaker ArcelorMittal SA (NYSE:MT) has acquired Bakermet, an Ottawa-based company that buys and recycles scrap metal, for an undisclosed sum.

The Luxembourg-based industry giant, which also owns Hamilton-based Dofasco, said access to Bakermet’s plant near Ottawa will secure upstream self-sufficiency in shredded metal for ArcelorMittal’s Contrecoeur mill in Quebec.

Read the full story at The Canadian Press >>

Joyce Russell | Source: The Times/nwi.com

Firefighters from five departments battled a blaze overnight at U.S. Steel’s Midwest plant here.

Portage Assistant Chief Mike Bucy said his department was called to the steelmill at about 11:30 p.m. Thursday. As initial crews were on the way, they saw an orange glow and flames coming from the batch and anealing line building.

Bucy said the fire apparently started in the roof and vents over the building. [Fire crews] used approximately 800 feet of hose line to reach the fire along with their tower truck and an aerial from Mittal steel. There were no injuries.

People were working in the building at the time of the fire. The mill was able to restart production on the line once firefighters cleared the scene at 4:30 a.m.

In addition to Portage, firefighters from South Haven, Ogden Dunes, Burns Harbor and Mittal Steel were on the scene.

Bucy said an investigation into the fire would be up to U.S. Steel.

Full story at The Times/nwi.com >>

Source: The Gazette

Quebec Cartier Mining Co., Quebec-Labrador’s second-biggest iron ore producer formed 50 years ago by U.S. Steel Corp., is changing names. It later was controlled by Hamilton-steelmaker Dofasco, which was acquired last year by European-based Arcelor Mittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker. Quebec Cartier came with that deal, and it has become Arcelor Mittal Mines Canada, with annual capacity of 15 million tonnes of iron concentrates and 2,000 employees.

By Erik Potter | Source: Post Tribune

As an example, wind power, which has landed on Indiana’s radar in a big way with plans for more than 300 wind turbines in Benton County by year’s end, would impact bread-and-butter Indiana industries.

Iron and steel workers, millwrights, sheet metal workers and machinists would all be needed to fuel a wind power expansion. Indiana has more than 24,000 such workers.

Marco Trbovich, a United Steelworkers union spokesman, said it was an investment in wind energy in Pennsylvania that led to the ArcelorMittal plant at Burns Harbor hiring 200 people recently.

“What this report shows is that there are real jobs out there” in a green economy, Trbovich said.

Read the rest of the story at the Post-Tribune >>

By Vivek Sharma | Source: domain-b.com

Lakshmi Mittal’s big dream, when he set out to acquire Arcelor, was to rid the steel industry of price cyclicality. Two years after the mega deal which transformed the steel business, is he any closer to his dream?

Read the full story at domain-b.com >>

Naomi Powell | Source: The Hamilton Spectator

U.S. Steel Canada says it will “vigorously defend itself” against ArcelorMittal Dofasco in a legal dispute over the Wabush iron ore venture.

In documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, U.S. Steel Canada said it “does not believe it has any liability to Dofasco regarding this matter.”

Dofasco is suing U.S. Steel Canada (formerly Stelco) and Ohio’s Cleveland Cliffs Inc. over claims they unfairly pulled out of a deal to sell their 71.4 per cent stake in the mine.

Though ArcelorMittal Dofasco says the partners forged a “binding agreement” at the end of August, U.S. Steel says the deal was not binding.

Read the full story, claims at the Hamilton Spectator >>

Articles in Indiana papers draw comments and considerable concern from workers, responders and community. Be sure to read the comments after each of these articles at their respective sites:

• Accident kills ArcelorMittal worker - NWI.com (see Comments)
• Girder falls, kills worker at steelmill - Post-Tribune (see Comments)

See Also:

• ArcelorMittal Steel worker killed by steel girder - Chicago Tribune
• Millwright death termed accidental - NWI Times

Be sure to read comments at NWI Times about training, liabilities and work requirements for crafted millwrights at plants such as ArcelorMittal

By KEVIN NEVERS | Source: Chesterton Tribune

A steelworker died Wednesday in a “freak accident” at the Burns Harbor facility of Mittal Steel USA, after being pinned between two girders.

Paul Gipson, president of United Steelworkers Local 6787 identified the member as Russell Payne, 60, of Portage. Payne leaves a wife and two sons.

The accident occurred around mid-morning in the former slabbing mill shuttered by Bethlehem Steel Corporation, later converted by International Steel Group and then Mittal into a storage facility for motors, girders, crane equipment, and other materiel.

… “He died instantly,” Gipson said. “He never felt anything.”

A total of 27 people have died at the mill in its 42-year history, Gipson said. Most recently, in July 2006, Kevin Sullivan, 50, of LaPorte, was crushed to death at No. 1 Coke Battery when he was caught between the battery and a machine which opens its doors. “A steel mill is a terrible place to die,” Gipson said.

Payne was a 33-year veteran of the mill and was eligible for retirement. A benefit is being planned for his family.

Full story, quotes at the Chesterton Tribune (rather grisly) >>