Fatal explosion at U.S. Steel’s plant raises questions about its future, despite heavy investment

Aug. 17, 2025:

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The fatal explosion last week at U.S. Steel’s Pittsburgh-area coal-processing plant has revived debate about its future just as the iconic American company was emerging from a long period of uncertainty.

The fortunes of steelmaking in the U.S. — along with profits, share prices and steel prices — have been buoyed by years of friendly administrations in Washington that slapped tariffs on foreign imports and bolstered the industry’s anti-competitive trade cases against China.

Most recently, President Donald Trump’s administration postponed new hazardous air pollution requirements for the nation’s roughly dozen coke plants, like Clairton, and he approved U.S. Steel’s nearly $15 billion acquisition by Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel.

Nippon Steel’s promised infusion of cash has brought vows that steelmaking will continue in the Mon Valley, a river valley south of Pittsburgh long synonymous with steelmaking.

“We’re investing money here. And we wouldn’t have done the deal with Nippon Steel if we weren’t absolutely sure that we were going to have an enduring future here in the Mon Valley,” David Burritt, U.S. Steel’s CEO, told a news conference the day after the explosion. ”You can count on this facility to be around for a long, long time.”

Will the explosion change anything?

The explosion killed two workers and hospitalized 10 with a blast so powerful that it took hours to find two missing workers beneath charred wreckage and rubble. The cause is under investigation.

The plant is considered the largest coking operation in North America and, along with a blast furnace and finishing mill up the Monongahela River, is one of a handful of integrated steelmaking operations left in the U.S.

The explosion now could test Nippon Steel’s resolve in propping up the nearly 110-year-old Clairton plant, or at least force it to spend more than it had anticipated.

Nippon Steel didn’t respond to a question as to whether the explosion will change its approach to the plant.

Rather, a spokesperson for the company said its “commitment to the Mon Valley remains strong” and that it sent “technical experts to work with the local teams in the Clairton Plant, and to provide our full support.”

Meanwhile, Burritt said he had talked to top Nippon Steel officials after the explosion and that “this facility and the Mon Valley are here to stay.”

U.S. Steel officials maintain that safety is their top priority and that they spend $100 million a year on environmental compliance at Clairton alone.

However, repairing Clairton could be expensive, an investigation into the explosion could turn up more problems, and an official from the United Steelworkers union said it’s a constant struggle to get U.S. Steel to invest in its plants.

Besides that, production at the facility could be affected for some time. The plant has six batteries of ovens and two — where the explosion occurred — were damaged. Two others are on a reduced production schedule because of the explosion.

There is no timeline to get the damaged batteries running again, U.S. Steel said.

Accidents are nothing new at Clairton

Accidents are nothing new at Clairton, which heats coal to high temperatures to make coke, a key component in steelmaking, and produces combustible gases as byproducts.

An explosion in February injured two workers.

Even as Nippon Steel was closing the deal in June, a breakdown at the plant dealt three days of a rotten egg odor into the air around it from elevated hydrogen sulfide emissions, the environmental group GASP reported.

The Breathe Project, a public health organization, said U.S. Steel has been forced to pay $57 million in fines and settlements since Jan. 1, 2020, for problems at the Clairton plant.

A lawsuit over a Christmas Eve fire at the Clairton plant in 2018 that saturated the area’s air for weeks with sulfur dioxide produced a withering assessment of conditions there.

An engineer for the environmental groups that sued wrote that he “found no indication that U.S. Steel has an effective, comprehensive maintenance program for the Clairton plant.”

The Clairton plant, he wrote, is “inherently dangerous because of the combination of its deficient maintenance and its defective design.”

U.S. Steel settled, agreeing to spend millions on upgrades.

Matthew Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project, said U.S. Steel has shown more willingness to spend money on fines, lobbying the government and buying back shares to reward shareholders than making its plants safe.

Will Clairton be modernized?

It’s not clear whether Nippon Steel will change Clairton.

Central to Trump’s approval of the acquisition was Nippon Steel’s promises to invest $11 billion into U.S. Steel’s aging plants and to give the federal government a say in decisions involving domestic steel production, including plant closings.

But much of the $2.2 billion that Nippon Steel has earmarked for the Mon Valley plants is expected to go toward upgrading the finishing mill, or building a new one.

For years before the acquisition, U.S. Steel had signaled that the Mon Valley was on the chopping block.

That left workers there uncertain whether they’d have jobs in a couple years and whispering that U.S. Steel couldn’t fill openings because nobody believed the jobs would exist much longer.

Relics of steelmaking’s past

In many ways, U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley plants are relics of steelmaking’s past.

In the early 1970s, U.S. steel production led the world and was at an all-time high, thanks to 62 coke plants that fed 141 blast furnaces. Nobody in the U.S. has built a blast furnace since then, as foreign competition devastated the American steel industry and coal fell out of favor.

Now, China is dominant in steel and heavily invested in coal-based steelmaking. In the U.S., there are barely a dozen coke plants and blast furnaces left, as the country’s steelmaking has shifted to cheaper electric arc furnaces that use electricity, not coal.

Blast furnaces won’t entirely go away, analysts say, since they produce metals that are preferred by automakers, appliance makers and oil and gas exploration firms.

Still, Christopher Briem, an economist at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Social and Urban Research, questioned whether the Clairton plant really will survive much longer, given its age and condition. It could be particularly vulnerable if the economy slides into recession or the fundamentals of the American steel market shift, he said.

“I’m not quite sure it’s all set in stone as people believe,” Briem said. “If the market does not bode well for U.S. Steel, for American steel, is Nippon Steel really going to keep these things?”

Aug. 12, 2025:

CLAIRTON, Pa. (AP) — An explosion rocked a steel plant outside Pittsburgh, leaving two dead and 10 others injured, including a person who was rescued from the smoldering rubble after hours of being trapped.

The explosion sent black smoke spiraling into the midday Monday (Aug. 11, 2025) sky in the Mon Valley, a region of the state synonymous with steel for more than a century.

Allegheny County Emergency Services said a fire at the plant in Clairton started late Monday morning. Officials said they had not isolated the cause of the blast.

The rumbling from the explosion, and several smaller blasts that followed, jolted the community about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southeast of Pittsburgh. Amy Sowers, who was sitting on her porch less than a mile from the plant, felt her house shake.

“I could see smoke from my driveway,” she said. “We heard ambulances and fire trucks from every direction.”

Sowers, 45, grew up in Clairton and has seen several incidents at the plant over the years.

“Lives were lost again,” Sowers said. “How many more lives are going to have to be lost until something happens?”

Investigating the blast’s cause

At a news conference, Scott Buckiso, U.S. Steel’s chief manufacturing officer, did not give details about the damage or casualties, and said they were still trying to determine what happened. He said the company, now a subsidiary of Japan-based Nippon Steel Corp., is working with authorities.

Allegheny Health Network said it treated seven patients from the plant and discharged five within a few hours. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center said it is treating three patients at UPMC Mercy, the region’s only level one trauma and burn center.

According to the company, the plant has approximately 1,400 workers.

In a statement, the United Steelworkers, which represents many of the Clairton plant’s workers, said it had representatives on the ground at the plant and would work to ensure there is a thorough investigation.

David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment, an environmental group that has sued U.S. Steel over pollution, said there needed to be “a full, independent investigation into the causes of this latest catastrophe and a re-evaluation as to whether the Clairton plant is fit to keep operating.”

U.S. Steel CEO David B. Burritt said the company would investigate.

It’s not the first explosion at the plant. A maintenance worker was killed in a blast in September 2009. In July 2010, another explosion injured 14 employees and six contractors. According to online OSHA records of workplace fatalities, the last death at the plant was in 2014, when a worker was burned and died after falling into a trench.

After the 2010 explosion, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined U.S. Steel and a subcontractor $175,000 for safety violations. U.S. Steel appealed its citations and fines, which were later reduced under a settlement agreement.

In February, a problem with a battery at the plant led to a “buildup of combustible material” that ignited, causing an audible “boom,” officials said. Two workers received first aid treatment but were not seriously injured.

Air quality concerns

The plant, a massive industrial facility along the Monongahela River, is considered the largest coking operation in North America and is one of four major U.S. Steel plants in Pennsylvania.

The plant converts coal to coke, a key component in the steelmaking process. To make coke, coal is baked in special ovens for hours at high temperatures to remove impurities that could otherwise weaken steel. The process creates what’s known as coke gas — made up of a lethal mix of methane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

The county health department initially told residents within 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) of the plant to remain indoors and close all windows and doors, but lifted the advisory later Monday. It said its monitors didn’t detect levels of soot or sulfur dioxide above federal standards.

The US Steel buyout

U.S. Steel has been a symbol of industrialization since it was founded in 1901 by J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie and others. It’s been the icon of the American steel industry that once dominated the world market until Japan, then China, became preeminent steelmakers over the past 40 years.

In June, U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel announced they had finalized a “historic partnership,” a deal that gives the U.S. government a say in some matters and comes a year and a half after the Japanese company first proposed its nearly $15 billion buyout of the iconic American steelmaker.

The pursuit by Nippon Steel for the Pittsburgh-based company was buffeted by national security concerns and presidential politics in a premier battleground state, dragging out the transaction for more than a year after U.S. Steel shareholders approved it.

Aug. 11, 2025:

UNDATED-AP- An explosion at a U.S. Steel plant near Pittsburgh left one dead and dozens injured or trapped under the rubble Monday (Aug. 11, 2025), with emergency workers on site trying to rescue victims, officials said.