Amsa plant resumes production

[miningmx.com] — ARCELORMITTAL SA, a unit of the world’s biggest steelmaker , resumed full production at its Newcastle plant that was hit by a furnace failure last year, the company said on Friday.

The furnace failure had impacted an already subdued outlook for the company and ArcelorMittal had to source steel from external sources to minimise the impact on its customers.

Higher electricity, raw material costs and weaker sales pushed the company into a third-quarter loss, but the steelmaker had forecast some improvement for the last three months of last year.

“The Newcastle plant resumed full production on December 9, 2011. The company is working hard to eliminate the sales backlog as soon as possible,’ the company said.

The steelmaker said the insurance claim was still estimated at R1.1bn.

“After a deductible amount of 160 million rand was taken into account the company received an interim payment of 490 million rand in December,’ it added.