Stelco eyeing a restart of idled steelmaking equipment

Stelco is eyeing a possible expansionof steelmakingactivities on currentlyidled equipment.

The company is looking to see if there's anysteelmakingpotential for the company to expand its operations, according to a public document filed in the wake of a three-year court-supervised restructuring process.

The company recently raised $230 million in a public offering, which it said would go in part tocapital improvements.

There are three "basic oxygen furnace" (BOF) stacks on the Hamilton lands that are not in use for any currentsteelmakingoperations.

While the plan was for the stacks to be demolished,Stelco, under new ownership, halted that process this fall while it takes "time to review the assets and equipment in theBOFstacks area," according to the document.

The restart potential may be one of the reasons for the delay in setting up a land trust calledLandCoto sell and lease the vacantStelcolands with the goal ofinvesting in the company's pensions and benefits funds.

Those lands made headlines last month after cityfinance head MikeZegaractold city councillors that hundreds of acres of the waterfront land had been significantly devalued for property tax purposes.

The land trust is a key component of a complicated sale of the Hamiltonsteelmakingcompany that was finalized in June.LandCo, a trust made up with provincial and labour representation, is to be the official property owner of the 818 acres of land, withStelcoleasing about one-third of that currently for steel operations.

That signals a potential expansion insteelmakingin Hamilton, which could seeStelcoleasing more acres of the land than it currently does and thus leaving less forLandCoto have toremediateand sell off.

AStelcorepresentative declined to comment on the details outlined in the public document.

kelly.bennett@cbc.ca