Despite the announcement made by Cornel Moisescu, head of primary at Liberty Galati, prior to the Easter break that the company’s blast furnace No. 5 would resume production on April 22, no activity has been observed from the mill as yet. According to reports, the new scheduled restart date is May 9, but most market participants do not believe that this deadline will be met either, due to significant technical issues as well as insufficient raw material reserves.
The Galati steel plant's sole working blast furnace, the blast furnace No. 5 was expected to be operational again on April 22 and was shut down more than ten months ago. The lack of output has raised concerns among the roughly 4,500 workers, who have had trouble receiving their salaries and have started to protest, with payments promised in the days ahead.
Meanwhile, due to general financial issues, the mill's administration requested last month that a preventive composition procedure be initiated and received court approval. In addition, earlier in month, the Romanian government had allocated funding for the mill to return to the market.