OUR POOR EVRAZ CLAYMONT STEEL The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde looming closure of Evraz Claymont Steel signals the latest upheaval in an industry that slowly crumbled in this region since the end of World War I. In some ways, the Claymont facility beat the odds surviving as long as it did, if this is indeed the end for the 95-year-old mill. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, blast furnaces operated in towns up and down the Delaware, Schuylkill and Susquehanna rivers. Mills sprung up in Wilmington and Claymont, as well as Pennsylvania locations in Chester, Coatesville, Harrisburg, Reading and Bethlehem – fueled by the vast supplies of anthracite coal from northeastern Pennsylvania. But then companies in western Pennsylvania and the upper Midwest learned how to make steel using baked bituminous coal for smelting, allowing them to produce on a scale operators on the Atlantic coast couldn’t match. “A lot of the mills around here sort of petered out one by one,” said Chris Baer, assistant curator of manuscripts at the Hagley Museum and Library. “The steel industry in this part of the world was left behind.” Those that survived, including Claymont and Coatesville, started making specialty and custom products on a smaller scale. But over the past three decades, the entire American steel industry has been decimated by overseas competition. “This is one of the last ones in the area left,” Baer said. “It was alive for a long time.” 1918: Steel plant built by Worth Steel Co., a private company. 1960: Phoenix Steel Corp. buys plant from Colorado Fuel and Iron. 1969: $50 million modernization completed. 1976: French industrial giant Creusot-Loire buys controlling interest in Phoenix Steel. 1980: Facing foreign competition and a weak economy, Phoenix lays off 20 percent of the 1,400 workers at its Claymont plant. 1983: Phoenix Steel files for bankruptcy, with about $80 million in debt due within the next year and only $50 million in current assets to cover its obligations. 1984: Phoenix receives a $1 million loan from the state of Delaware to appease its creditors and avoid closing the plant. 1986: Phoenix emerges from bankruptcy and is put up for sale. 1988: CitiSteel, an investment arm of the People’s Republic of China, buys Phoenix Steel for $13.5 million. 2005: H.I.G. Capital buys CitiSteel. 2006: CitiSteel is listed as a publicly traded company. 2007: Russian firm Evraz Group SA buys the mill for $564.8 million. 2013: Evraz announces it will close Claymont Steel.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 17:02:55 +0000
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