The struggling owner of the Sparrows Point steel mill tonight confirmed that its blast furnace at Warren, Ohio, will be shut for about a week following an accident early Saturday morning.

While the accident will have little direct impact on Sparrows Point, it is another setback for a company under enormous pressure to become profitable.

Shortly before Christmas, RG Steel abruptly shut Sparrows Point because of a cash shortage and failure to pay vendors. The Brew reported that Sparrows Point had been losing as much as $1 million a day and vendors had stopped supplying raw materials to the mill.

A $100 million-plus loan from Cerberus Capital Management permitted the mill to reopen, with the recall of about 700 laid-off steelworkers in Baltimore.

The Warren mill is the only profitable part of RG Steel. The temporary closure of its blast furnace will disrupt production and may lead to a further loss of credibility among customers that the company can fulfill orders.

Must Become “Cost Neutral”

Sources tell The Brew that Sparrows Point must become “cost neutral,” or  stop losing money from operations, by mid-April or, in the words of one insider, “we will be in the same shape we were in at the end of December.”

RG Steel spokeswoman Bette Kovach said tonight that a “tuyere,” or giant nozzle that directs hot air into a blast furnace, had “failed” at Warren, causing the shutdown. There were no injuries and “repairs are expected to be completed in about one week,” she said.

The Brew’s comment section has been alive with reports about the accident. Those included the initial assertion that an explosion had blown a hole in the furnace, which would have been a devastating setback for the company.

Steel Market Update, an on-line trade journal, was the first to report the Warren accident tonight.