In a statement Tuesday, the steelmaker said it will halt one furnace at its Gary Works in Indiana and won’t restart the B2 furnace at its Great Lakes Works in Ecorse, Mich., following a planned maintenance outage, which is underway. Combined, the outages will lop 200,000 to 225,000 tons of monthly capacity, U. S, Steel said. 

Meanwhile, in Slovakia, U. S. Steel said it will take the No. 2 furnace at its Kosice plant out of service, reducing monthly hot metal capacity by 125,000 tons. 

The company said the European steel market is being impacted by lower demand and rising levels of imports. Steelmakers there are also facing headwinds from raw materials costs, it said. 

The decision to idle the Kosice blast furnace follows an announcement from ArcelorMittal, which last month said it was curtailing production and idling furnaces on account of rising import pressure. 

Back in the U.S., steelmakers are also seeing demand growth slow and falling prices. U. S. Steel, in fact, said it expects its second-quarter adjusted net earnings per diluted share to fall to around 40 cents, a decline of 73%.

Earlier in the week, Nucor Corp. said it, too, was expecting its second-quarter profits to decline. 

Nucor said service center destocking was impacting its order rates, but it said most of the end markets it serves remain healthy.

U.S. Steel called the idlings temporary and said it would bring the furnaces back into service when market conditions improve. 

It also said it remains committed to the mill investments it its making, particularly its plan to build a new hot strip mill at its Edgar Thomson plant in Pittsburgh, Pa., USA. 

“While market conditions have softened, we remain focused on executing the value creation strategy that is underway. We believe that the investments being made to improve costs and expand product capabilities will create a more differentiated and agile company, combining our competitive advantages with state-of-the-art sustainable steel technology to create long-term value for our stockholders, customers and employees,” it said.