Wheeling-Pitt to hire 30 to 35 at Mon Valley steel plant
ALLENPORT – Improvements in the steel industry are leading one company to look for 30 to 35 new employees to bolster its work force.
Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel will hire that many workers for jobs at its Allenport plant.
Applicants can go to the fire hall in Allenport on Monday and Tuesday to talk to company recruiters.
The Allenport mill employs about 350 people who produce cold-rolled sheet steel for a wide range of industries and applications, such as automotive, appliance and construction.
Cold-rolled sheet is produced in widths through 60 inches in thickness and in a broad range of finishes, including pattern rolled, according to the company.
“The reason we are hiring is we have had some attrition that we haven’t been filling,” said Jim Kosowski, director of public relations. “We will be hiring some entry-level-type positions for that. We are also looking forward at getting some new folks in the pipeline so in the future we will be better staffed.”
Kosowski said some of the things that have helped the ailing business include new tariffs on imported steel that President Bush imposed this year.
“Things have improved considerably for us,” Kosowski said. “Since the tariffs have come in, our order book has been filled and pricing has improved.”
In addition, Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel has applied for a $250 million loan guarantee through the federal Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Act, known as the Byrd Bill for Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who was instrumental in its passage.
“We are still looking for that to be approved,” Kosowski said.
Looking forward, he said the company is also working to come out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a filing it made in November 2000 to protect itself from creditors and reorganize.
“However, the market for us has definitely improved. There are a couple of things affecting the market. One is early this year there was a lot of domestic steel capacity that had shut down. A lot of that has come back recently. But domestic production is down somewhat for the year.
“In addition, the steel imports and the tariffs for the steel imports are doing their job keeping out some of the imports.
“What we don’t have because of the economy is a big increase in demand, so this is more of a supply issue that has helped the steel companies,” he said.
Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel, headquartered in Wheeling, W.Va., operates several facilities in manufacturing steel products. It is the nation’s eighth-largest domestic steel producer.
President and CEO James G. Bradley emphasized the importance of the loan guarantee.
The Royal Bank of Canada filed an application on behalf of the company with the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Board to obtain a $250 million federal steel loan guarantee. RBC Capital Markets will underwrite the loan.
“Making an application under the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee program is a milestone event for Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel. It is the beginning of a process that will change the DNA of the company,” Bradley said in a prepared statement.
The Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Program provides a minimum 85 percent federal loan guarantee for the lender. In addition to the federal loan guarantee, Ohio and West Virginia have agreed to provide financing of $12 million and $15 million, respectively, as part of the loan package.
A major component to the company’s Byrd Bill loan application and plan of reorganization is the investment in a $109 million electric arc furnace (EAF) at the company’s Mingo Junction facility. The EAF would replace one of the company’s two operating blast furnaces. An EAF typically uses recycled scrap steel and scrap alternatives as 100 percent of its feedstock.
Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel, however, will have the capability to feed both scrap and liquid iron from its remaining blast furnace into its EAF.
In addition, the company plans to upgrade the quality capability of the Allenport facility.