U.S. Steel Corp., the nation’s third-largest steelmaker, announced it’s in talks to end production at its century-old furnaces in Illinois. Shares fell to their lowest since January.
The more than 120-year-old Pittsburgh-based company plans to sell the two blast furnaces at its Granite City Works facility to SunCoke Energy for an undisclosed amount to propel the use of so-called pig iron, a raw material needed to make steel in its mini-mills. Transitioning the facility to produce the raw material from steelmaking will take until 2024 and would result in the loss of as many as 1,000 jobs, according to the company.
