[Ferro-Alloys.com] United States Steel has announced additional actions to competitively position the company for the future. US Steel intends to indefinitely idle a significant portion of its Great Lakes Works operation near Detroit, Mich. The company expects to begin idling the iron and steelmaking facilities on or around April 1, 2020 and the Hot Strip Mill rolling facility before the end of 2020. The company will be issuing Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notices to approximately 1,545 employees at Great Lakes Works, although we anticipate the final number of employees who will be impacted by the idling will be lower.

UK’s Business Secretary Ms Andrea Leadsom confirmed that good progress is being made with the sale of British Steel to proposed new owners Jingye.

British media also reported that British Steel Jingye deal has been bolstered by reports the government is in the process of finalising a GBP 120 million package to help protect jobs in the area. It is expected that the government will confirm it will provide the funding in the next few weeks. A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said “We are continuing to work with Official Receiver and Jingye on the next stage of the sales process. The Government schemes that are available to all steel producers will be available to them, should they choose to apply to them but no Government money has currently been committed.”

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