May 3, 2006 — A fire has halted production for Mittal Steel USA in one of the steelmaking shops at the company’s Indiana Harbor facility in East Chicago, Ind.

The fire occurred when a ladle descended unexpectedly late Friday and dumped more than 200 tons of molten iron to the shop floor. The resulting fire caused significant damage before being extinguished about four hours later.

Although no one was seriously hurt, one employee sustained minor injuries and another was taken to a hospital for observation after being shaken up by the incident. Both were released and cleared for work. "Most importantly, I was very relieved to learn that there were no serious injuries," said Louis L. Schorsch, President and CEO of Mittal Steel USA. "However, our preliminary assessment indicates that No. 3 steel production will be down for about 30 days, which translates into about 300,000 tons of steelmaking."

Schorsch said the company is confident that it will continue to meet the needs of customers and restore production at No. 3 steel production as quickly as possible. "We are still in the very early stages of our assessment; but already our entire organization is being mobilized in an attempt to minimize the impact of this incident on our customers," he said.

Preliminary reports indicate that a crane equipment failure caused the ladle to descend as it was moving toward a steelmaking furnace, and the ladle's tilting mechanism engaged the pouring hook hoist on the way down. The company expects the damage and losses associated with business disruption to be covered by insurance.

Mittal Steel USA, with its affiliates, serves a broad U.S. manufacturing base. The company was formed in April 2005 and consists of the former Ispat Inland Inc. and the former International Steel Group. It has operations in 12 U.S. states.

Mittal Steel Co. has operations in 16 countries, on four continents. Mittal Steel encompasses all aspects of modern steelmaking, to produce a comprehensive portfolio of both flat and long steel products to meet a wide range of customer needs. It serves all the major steel consuming sectors, including automotive, appliance, machinery and construction. For 2005, Mittal Steel had revenues of US $28.1 billion and steel shipments of 49.2 million tons.