On Aug. 10, Grupo Simec — a producer of special bar quality steel, steel wire, rebar, and commercial and structural steel long products — announced it will indefinitely idle steelmaking operations at its Republic Steel mills in Canton, Ohio, and Lackawanna, New York.

Republic Steel’s U.S. customers will be served via Grupo Simec’s mill in Tlaxcala, Mexico, the company said in a news release. U.S. customers will experience no interruption in service.

As a result of the consolidation, approximately 500 Republic Steel employees will be furloughed indefinitely, Grupo Simec said.

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“We’re facing an extremely challenging SBQ market in the U.S., with competitive market pricing and decreased demand,” said Jaime Vigil, Republic Steel Board Member and Executive Advisor. “At the same time, we’ve had to deal with increasing input costs on all raw materials, consumables, and labor, all as a result of the inflationary environment in the U.S. over the past year.”

Vigil said there was hope that inflationary pressures would ease, and that Republic Steel would “experience a bump in business following the passages of the Infrastructure Bill in 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.”

“Unfortunately, neither came to fruition in a timely manner,” Grupo Simec said in its release.