Geneva Steel
This page was last updated on April 4, 2008.
Columbia-Geneva Steel Co., Geneva, Utah
United States Steel, Geneva Works
Basic Manufacturing & Technolgies (Geneva Works)
Geneva Steel Corp.
Steam Locomotive Roster
Diesel Locomotive Roster
1942-1948:
When the Defense Plant Corp. built a steel plant at Geneva, Utah in 1942-43, Geneva Steel Co., a subsidiary of the United States Steel Co. operated the plant. After the war, U. S. Steel (which had acquired Columbia Steel Co.), also purchased the Geneva Plant from DPC. Both facilities were then operated as a U.S.S. subsidiary, the Columbia-Geneva Steel Co. About 1947-48 in a reorganization, the operations became the U. S. Steel Corp., Geneva Division.
Ownership changed from Columbia Steel Co., to Geneva Steel Co., in June 1946; to United States Steel Co., in December 1951; to United States Steel Corp. in January 1953. (information from Jeff Terry, via email on February 26, 2003)
1980-1989:
By the mid 1980s, about 70 percent of Geneva's production was shipped to U. S. Steel's Pittsburg Works in Pittsburg, Calif. In early 1986, U. S. Steel sold half interest in the Pittsburg operation to Pohang Iron & Steel of South Korea. The Korean steel manufacturer was looking to the future when in 1989 quotas for raw steel imports were to be lifted. The Pittsburg plant was to receive a major portion of its raw steel as imports from Korea, rather than from the Geneva Works. (American Metal Market, April 8, 1987, via FindArticles.com)
United States Steel Corporation was reorganized on July 9, 1986 as USS, Inc., a subsidiary of its parent holding corporation, USX Corporation.
Geneva's production amounted to 1.5 million tons per year, of which 70 percent was shipped to Pittsburg. Without this business, Geneva would only be able to keep one of its four blast furnaces in operation. In recent years, due to shrinking demand, only two of the four furnaces had been operating. Employment was projected to drop from 2200 to 800.
On August 1, 1986, after several years of non-productive negoiations on a national level, the unions began a national strike against USX Corporation, and its USS, Inc. steel making subsidiary. The stike included the Geneva Works and the plant was closed except for basic caretaker operations. The steel plant did not reopen when the unions and USS settled their dispute in February 1987. USS announced in April 1987 that it would close the Geneva Works permanently as of July 1, 1987. (part from American Metal Market, April 8, 1987, via FindArticles.com)
Geneva Works was sold to Basic Manufacturing and Technologies on August 31, 1987. The sale to BM&T needed to take place in an expedited manner because if the coke ovens at Geneva were allowed to cool off after a permenant shut down, they would have to be completely rebuilt at a cost of millions of dollars.
From a 1994 description of Geneva Steel (SEC Form 10-K):
Geneva Steel Company owns and operates the only integrated steel mill operating west of the Mississippi River. The Company's mill manufactures hot-rolled sheet, plate and pipe products for sale primarily in the western and central United States. The steel mill is located 45 miles south of Salt Lake City, Utah on approximately 1,400 acres. The steel mill's facilities include four coke oven batteries, three blast furnaces, two Q-BOP furnaces, a continuous casting facility, a combination continuous rolling mill and various finishing facilities. The company's coke ovens produce coke from a blend of various grades of metallurgical coal. Coke is used as the principal fuel for the Company's blast furnaces, which convert iron ore into liquid iron. The liquid iron is then blended with scrap metal and metallic alloys and further refined in the Q-BOP furnaces to produce liquid steel. With the completion of the continuous casting facility and related improvements, the liquid steel is now continuously cast into slabs. The company intends to process the majority of its liquid steel through the caster facility, and in November 1994 more than 92 percent of the company's steel slabs were processed through the caster. Alternatively, liquid steel can be poured into ingot molds, with the ingots being subsequently rolled into slabs. Steel slabs are either direct rolled or allowed to cool and then reheated prior to rolling. Slabs are rolled into hot-rolled steel products (sheet, plate and pipe) in the company's rolling and finishing mills.
The company acquired the steel mill and related facilities from USX Corporation on August 31, 1987 at a price of approximately $44.1 million plus the assumption of certain liabilities. USX had operated the mill from 1944 until 1986, when it placed the mill on hot-idle status. USX retained liability for retiree life insurance, health care and pension benefits relating to employee service prior to the acquisition. USX also retained any environmental liability.
Basic Manufacturing and Technologies of Utah changed its name to Geneva Steel on (??).
When the open hearth furnaces were still in use and before the blast furnace slag began to be hauled by the rubber tired ladel carriers, Geneva needed a lot of engines. In recent years they got by with only six to eight units operating. There was always one engine sitting near the continuous caster, and it would often go for days at a time without turning a wheel. (email from Steve Seguine, May 2002)
August 1997:
The last train to travel across Colorado's Tennessee Pass as a westbound unit train moving iron ore in the form of taconite pellets, moving from Mountain Iron, Minn., to Geneva Steel near Provo, Utah. The train crossed the pass on August 23rd and carried SP symbol OMIGV-19, and had two SP GE's on the lead (SP 262 and 219), with two SP GEs and an SP GP60 (SP 108, 241, and 9607) as mid-train helpers, with 94 loads, no empties, no caboose, length of 5,244 feet and loaded weight of 12,145 tons. (Trainorders.com, March 8, 2004)
November 2001:
Geneva Steel, which was at one time the largest customer on the Rio Grande, has been "temporarily" idled because of the poor condition of the steel market. The remaining three coke oven batteries are being kept hot on natural gas for the time being. The single blast furnace, that has been used since being rebuilt last spring, is also being kept hot. The pipe mill is still working for another week or two to fill orders with steel that has previously been rolled. No coal or taconite pellets have been delivered in over a month. (Steve Seguine, November 30, 2001, email to D&RGW discussion group)
March 2003:
When the Geneva Works was built during World War II, the raw materials were
obtained nearby. Coking coal came from Carbon County, and the iron ore came
from Cedar City and later from Atlantic City, Wyoming. When USX closed the
plant in 1986, the Horse Canyon mine was permanently closed, and the modern
taconite mill and it's railroad at Atlantic City were dismantled. When
Geneva Steel reopened they had to buy their iron ore in Minnesota, and coal
from as far away as Virginia. After a couple of profitable
years, foolish expenditures were made for unproven technologies and the
company was deeply in debt. The dumping of foreign steel reached new high
levels in the late 1990s, and Geneva Steel declared bankruptcy in February 1999, and
then rushed to emerge from it in the fall of 2000 in order to obtain a
government guaranteed loan for over $100 million dollars. With the steel
market no better than it was before the bankruptcy and the economy in a tail
spin, they squandered the borrowed money without making any badly needed
plant improvements. Finally, with the money running out they idled the
plant in the fall of 2001, too little relief was realized from the steel
tariffs, and another loan was sought. A second chapter 11 bankruptcy was
filed, but without any lenders willing to risk their money on the old plant,
the creditors took over and began selling everything possible. Geneva Steel may have been successful if the source of
materials hadn't been so far away, and if the new management had known steelmaking as well as the legal profession. (Steve Seguine, March 11, 2003)
December 2003:
Geneva Steel sold its major steel-making components to a Chinese steel company:
Geneva Steel LLC, a Vineyard, UT-based integrated steel producer has completed negotiations with Qindago Iron & Steel Group Co. Ltd., Shandong province, China, whereby Qindago would buy most of Geneva's mill production equipment which it would transport overseas to its operations southeast of Beijing on the Yellow Sea.
Geneva's major lines included in the proposed sale include its 235-ton Q-BOP, or bottom-blown oxygen steelmaking furnace; its 126-in. slab caster; a 132-in. steel plate and strip mill; and the 132-in. plate finishing lines. The variable-width caster, which can also be used as a dual-cast, two-strand caster of up to 68.5 inches each, is considered Geneva's greatest asset.
Geneva Steel filed for bankruptcy in February 1999 after defaulting on a $9 million bond payment. In mid-2000, the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Board extended an offer of guarantee to Citicorp USA, Geneva's administrative agent, in connection with a proposed $110 million term loan to help finance the plan of reorganization the company had been developing. In November 2000, the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Utah confirmed Geneva's Plan of Reorganization. Geneva emerged from Chapter 11 in January 2001, only to file for Chapter 11 protection again on January 28, 2002.
Qindago Steel produces long products and tubulars, including wire rod, deformed bar, round bar, seamless tube, cold-rolled ribbed steel, welded mesh, cold drawn pipe, strapping, welded pipe and nails. The company's annual capacity is 1.2 million metric tons of raw steel and 1.15 million metric tons of finished steel. (Skillings Mining Review, December 31, 2003)
"Geneva Gets Chinese Offer":
Less than 10 cents on the dollar. That's what a Chinese company is offering to pay for bankrupt Geneva Steel's equipment. According to court documents, Qingdao Iron and Steel Group Co. said it is willing to buy the defunct company's assets for $35.3 million in cash — nearly $5 million less than what Joseph Cannon and a group of investors purchased the plant for from U.S. Steel in 1987. The offer is less than 10 percent of the more than $400 million the Vineyard-based company poured into a modernization campaign to upgrade its facilities during the 1990s. And the sale, if approved by the bankruptcy court, will cover about one-third of the roughly $108 million still owed to Geneva's secured creditors, namely the U.S. government and CitiCorp. (Deseret Morning News, December 31, 2003)
2004:
The sale was completed in February-March 2004 and dismantling began in 2004.
June 2005:
Demolition of of Geneva Steel began on June 30, 2005
with an explosion that brought down the most of the blast furnaces. A total of 3,000 pounds of explosives were used, but even that amount was not enough to bring down all of the tall structures. (KSL.com, June 30, 2005)
2006-2007:
The work continued through early 2006, with 40 carloads being shipped in January 2006. The nine railroad locomotives were some of the last salvageable equipment to leave the site, in June 2007.
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