Sunday, March 8, 2009

BlueScope Steel Cancels Four Iron Ore Shipments

BlueScope Steel has cancelled four iron ore shipments from Grange Resources' Savage River mine in Tasmania as it brings forward a blast furnace reline because of slowing global conditions.

Grange said the shipments would instead be taken by major shareholder Shagang International, under existing contractual arrangements. It shut one of its blast furnaces early this year for a reline as part of a program to cut production.

BlueScope has said that it hopes to restart the blast furnace in June 2009, but could keep it closed if the outlook for steel does not improve. The cancellation is not the first. BlueScope refused to take three contracted shipments in December.

Grange, which completed a reverse takeover of Chinese controlled Australian Bulk Minerals this year, said one of its two autogenous grinding mills had some shell cracking and would be down for 8 to 10 weeks.

Source: Steel Guru

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