IN THE SEPULCHRAL blackness of Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point blast furnace, 1,000 grime-covered workers toil in tight quarters, elbowing their way past each other on narrow catwalks encircling the armor-plated furnace or chipping away like coal miners at the brick lining that contains its 2,800-degree hellfire.
Those thousand workers on the L blast-furnace project are among 8,500 at the Sparrows Point steelmaking facility this month -- a number well above normal, thanks to the 4,000 contract workers whose numbers nearly equal those on Bethlehem's payroll.
Nearly all the outside workers and many Sparrows Point employees are racing to complete seven modernization projects costing $615 million -- an investment that underscores Bethlehem's confidence in Sparrows Point's future. An investment of that scale virtually guarantees that a facility long viewed as a cash drain and a candidate for closure will remain part of Baltimore's economy for more than a decade -- and probably longer, analysts and industry experts say.
The outlays come only because of compromises between the company and the United Steelworkers of America union that allow for job reductions and more flexible work rules, which make Sparrows Point more competitive. A deal between the company and the USW, for instance, paved the way for a cold-rolling mill, which in turn made the relining of the blast furnace a necessity. Without that deal, the cold mill might have been built elsewhere.
Sparrows Point is "no longer a spare part," said Waldo T. Best, a steel industry analyst with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in New York City. "The watershed event was that the union agreed to trade some jobs -- through attrition -- for the investment of capital. With that comes long-term job security. If you get the company to put money into the plant, instead of job security for 10 years, you may essentially guarantee jobs for 100 years."
Most of the $615 million will come from Bethlehem's corporate coffers. But it is also cutting costs by allowing outside companies to invest in, build and operate facilities that will let Bethlehem contract out ancillary operations.
The key investments and the projects they finance consist of: $300 million for a new mill to produce cold-rolled steel, a high-profit product.
$100 million to replace the bricks that line the L blast furnace, which produces molten iron.
$70 million to update the basic oxygen furnace, which turns the molten iron made by the blast furnace into steel.
$60 million to widen one of Sparrows Point's two casters, which create the steel slabs that are sent to the hot-rolling mill where the metal is rolled and stretched to make it thinner.
$60 million by a Michigan company, DTE Energy Services, to build a pulverized coal injection plant that will feed the L blast furnace. Bethlehem will lease the land to DTE and buy the pulverized coal from that company.
$15 million by an outside contractor to build, own and operate an on-site commercial scrap yard from which Bethlehem can buy scrap to use in its own steelmaking operations.
$10 million by Bethlehem and a joint-venture partner to build a commercial roll-grinding plant to create ultra-high-quality surfaces on steel made at Sparrows Point.
At the same time, Sparrows Point Division has another hundred or so smaller projects under way, most of them repair jobs made possible by the shutting down of different operations while the furnace is being rebuilt.
"This is the busiest year we've had in decades," said Carl Johnson, president of Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point Division.
All this -- investing in the most modern technology, focusing on the main business and cutting costs wherever pos- sible -- is aligned with Sparrows Point's goal of putting itself in position to offer the best service of any steel company and prices that are competitive.
Not coincidentally, the biggest projects are intertwined. For instance, by building the new cold-rolling mill, Bethlehem was committing to keeping the plant here open for a decade or more, meaning the blast furnace had to be refurbished. And with the blast furnace refurbished, the steelmaking basic oxygen furnace needed modernizing.
With the acquisition of steel platemaker Lukens Inc., Sparrows Point had to be able to provide wider steel slabs, necessitating the changes in the caster system, Johnson said.
At $300 million, the new cold-rolling steel mill has the biggest sticker price. But the most important project at the moment is the blast furnace, which last had its entire lining replaced in 1990 (some repairs were made in 1993).
Heart of plant
If Sparrows Point was a living being, the blast furnace would be its heart, because the molten iron it pumps out is the blood that, directly or indirectly, feeds virtually every other facility in the complex. The furnace -- about 49 feet in diameter at its widest point and 150 feet high -- is shaped like a pot-bellied stove. Including attached structures atop and below the furnace, it stands about 300 feet tall -- high enough to be topped by airplane warning lights.
Iron ore, coal or coal-like coke, limestone and waste byproducts of the steelmaking process are fed into the blast furnace, and super-heated by gases at 4,000 degrees injected at high speeds via narrow tubes called tuyeres (pronounced "tweers").
From the bottom of the furnace, via four outlets called tap holes and then four troughs called iron runs, 2,800-degree molten iron is drained into special rail cars parked beneath.
Ted Youmans, superintendent of the blast furnace department, recalls that he once got to look down into the furnace when its top was open to vent gases and described the view.
"It was like I was staring directly down into Hades," he said.
The rail cars are wheeled to the oxygen furnace, where the iron is poured over scrap steel, injected with oxygen and super-heated again to create steel. The oxygen injected into the molten mixture blows out the carbon, the element that makes iron more brittle than steel -- and, hence, makes steel the more attractive metal for many applications.
The hot molten steel then is moved into the adjacent caster area and poured into molds, creating the steel slabs that then can go through one or all of the steel finishing processes: hot rolling, cold rolling, coating or polishing.
Without the blast furnace operating, the oxygen furnace and casters stand idle, though a stockpile of slabs Bethlehem's been accumulating for a year keep feeding the hot-rolling, cold-rolling and finishing mills.
Sparrows Point once operated 10 blast furnaces. Now, L furnace is the only one. Indeed, Sparrows Point for a short time in 1959 was the world's biggest steel plant, employing 30,000 and able to make 9 million tons of steel a year.
Today it employs 4,500 and has a production capacity of 3.6 million tons.
Sparrows Point's L furnace began operating in 1978 and is still considered very efficient. Since its start-up, it has been shut down only three times until now: for repairs in 1984, a relining in 1990, and more repairs in 1993. Because a steel plant's furnace has to run continuously, when one is relined and refired insiders say it begins a new "campaign" -- today usually expected to last 10 to 12 years, said Larry Storm, a lead foreman for furnace operations at Sparrows Point.
"In 1990, the original plan was for a six-year campaign," he said.
Sparrows Point is shooting for 15 years from this relining, said Johnson, the division president.
Blast furnace workers emptied the iron-making caldron June 4. After quenching the fire from the slag that remained in the blast furnace, removing the leftover material and allowing the furnace to cool down, workers were able to get inside and begin work June 8, said Youmans, the blast furnace superintendent. From start to finish, work crews have 54 1/2 days to shut down, tear down, rebrick and refire the furnace, which costs the Sparrows Point plant $1,000 in lost business for every minute it is shut down.
August deadline
Aug. 1 is the target date for finishing the relining of the blast furnace. The modifications to the basic oxygen furnace and the initial modifications aimed at widening the caster (the project will be finished in the middle of next year) have to be finished within a day or so later so iron and steel production can start.
Blast furnace work started high up on the inner lining with workers knocking the brick away from the thick metal wall. Within days, the high portion of the inside wall was clean and smooth, resembling a silo.
With that done, a thick wooden-beam floor was constructed so workers upstairs could cut out the water-bearing cooling tubes and the hot-air injection ducts while others below could safely start tearing out the old bricks.
If the cleaned-out top portion resembled a silo, the lower section looked like a coal mine. Grime-covered workers, topped with hard hats and with body harnesses clipped to safety lines, hammered at the loose bricks on the inner wall, balancing atop a steep slope of blackened rubble.
The machine-gun clatter of jackhammers and the hissing of metal-burning acetylene torches made conversation at times difficult.
Around the outside of the furnace's lower level, thanks to the permanent catwalks and the tangle of temporary scaffolding, it was dark and gloomy. Workers and visitors had to duck around the occasional spray of sparks -- tiny, yellow-hot pieces of metal -- that shot forth as workers cut metal away from the furnace's outer surface.
15-year horizon
At least some of the thick metal shell also will be burned away, replaced with new metal that has yet to be through a campaign.
Fifteen years from now, near the end of the new lining's expected 15-year life, Bethlehem's leaders will once again study whether Sparrows Point is competitive.
Said Johnson, the Sparrows Point president: "We're talking 15 years until the next reline. That's the next decision point."