ne door closes. Another one opens. Cleveland-Cliffs will indefinitely idle its Indiana Harbor blast furnace No. 4 within a couple months. Its decision results from the operational improvements gained by adding significant amounts of hot-briquetted iron to the burden of blast furnaces and by maximizing scrap usage in basic oxygen furnaces.

Employees working at the No. 4 furnace will be reassigned to other positions within Indiana Harbor Works. Cliffs says it has jobs available throughout Indiana Harbor as normal operations continue, including its two steel shops, the hot strip mill, all finishing facilities plus Riverdale Works.

it’s got to be done well, correctly and on time. that has helped us navigate this market.

andrew gross, alliance steel

Under the agreement, a tariff-rate quota on steel imports from Japan will be established to prevent import surges in the future, according to Kevin Dempsey, president and CEO of the American Iron and Steel Institute. He also welcomed “continued vigorous enforcement of our laws to prevent circumvention and evasion of U.S. trade remedies on steel.”

ittsburgh-area residents learned about the structural deficiency of Fern Hollow bridge when it collapsed Jan. 28. Ten people were injured. In a preliminary report issued Feb. 7, the National Transportation Safety Board said the 447-foot-long bridge experienced a structural failure and fell about 100 feet into the park below.

ue to limited finances, hundreds of small to midsize service centers, processors, fabricators and job shops must do more with the equipment they’ve got, even at the peak of a cycle, in order to remain competitive and grow.

Butech Bliss, Salem, Ohio, has been in business 37 years. Its founder and President John Buta formed Butech after designing and engineering metal processing machinery for others, including E.W. Bliss and Paxson Machine Co. Butech later purchased the assets of Bliss and, this past autumn, acquired the assets of LM Equipment & Design Inc. and Lehmann Mills.

northern Illinois fabricator recently supplied copper tiles that installers wrapped around a new grade school in Rochester, Minnesota. It’s one of the signature projects that Sheet Metal Supply Ltd. has become known for.

This project began with a 2019 bond referendum. Rochester’s schools were becoming crowded and the district needed voter approval for a new educational site that would be flexible enough to meet varying enrollment numbers well into the future.

The first of four schools funded with a $171 million bond, Overland Elementary opened in August 2021. LHB, a Minneapolis architecture firm that has experience designing schools, specified copper flat lock tiles from Sheet Metal Supply Ltd.

hen a piece of equipment is central to a company’s operation, reliability is essential. That’s the case for Metal Supermarkets’ stores.

Bill Bittorf, owner of Metal Supermarkets Denver (Commerce City), opened his franchise last July and primarily uses a SH-500M semiautomatic swivel-head mitering bandsaw, which features hydraulic lifting of the saw frame and a full-stroke hydraulic vise. Built by Charlotte, North Carolina-based Cosen Saws International Inc., the machine cuts more than 8,000 types, shapes and grades of metal. The customer base includes fabricators, building maintenance personnel, trades professionals and hobbyists.