By Andrew Harrer, ReutersThe collapse of a steel mill in eastern Pennsylvania could be the moment the world’s industrial revolution is finally on the brink of ending, analysts say.
The explosion at a mill in the village of Tottenville on Monday killed five workers and injured seven others.
The blast killed one of the mill’s managers, Joseph Vincci, the state’s top prosecutor, said on Tuesday.
“There’s going to be a major impact,” said Vincchi.
The collapse, he said, could trigger a chain reaction that could lead to mass layoffs and the closure of hundreds of steel mills across the U.S.
Industrialists and politicians alike have been warning for years that the rapid expansion of the global supply of steel and other heavy metals is starting to erode the world economy.
The U.N. agency for environmental protection, the World Resources Institute, on Monday warned of a potential shift in the supply of iron ore, the main ingredient of steel.
The International Monetary Fund, the United Nations’ main economic watchdog, has warned that steel production will decline sharply in the next three decades, a forecast that has put the United States at the forefront of a growing number of countries trying to reduce reliance on foreign steel.
U.S.-based energy giant Exxon Mobil Corp. last year reported a steep drop in steel production, with its U.K.-based subsidiary U.KK Steel Group reporting a decline of 9.6% in the first quarter of this year.UPS said its fourth quarter net profit dropped 9% to $1.06 billion, a third year of losses.
It said the U-K Steel Group, which makes some of its products for U.s. markets, is on track to have a loss of $50 million for the full year.
Steelworkers gather in the town of Tottleville, Pennsylvania, on May 12, 2020.
A massive explosion at the Tottenburg mill in Totten and neighboring villages on Monday morning left five people dead, including the boss of the plant, and a fourth worker injured.
REUTERS/Brian SnyderThe collapse could also lead to a chain of events that could accelerate a steep economic slowdown and the creation of more than 200 million jobs, analysts said.
There will be no shortage of demand for the steel and steel products that will be needed to keep up with rising demand for other goods, such as cement and rubber.
“We’re going to have more steel workers on the streets,” said Andrew Schulman, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein in New York.
“There will not be any shortage of steel.”
Tottenville is located in a heavily industrial area in Pennsylvania’s southern Tierra del Fuego state.
The area is home to a huge steel mill that employs about 5,000 workers and is owned by a foreign company.
Tottenburg, which sits on the western edge of Pennsylvania’s industrial heartland, is the largest of several steel mills in the region.
The city has been under state and federal protection since 2009, when a fire at the factory led to the deaths of workers.
The fire at Totten’s mill was the worst to hit the U,K.
region in decades.
A fire in Tottlesburg that killed one worker and injured 11 in 2014 killed five.
Tottleburg was home to the largest steel mills of the U.,K.
until they closed in 2014.
But that didn’t stop it from being touted as the perfect location for steelmaking.
A worker walks past a wall of steel at the steel mill of the Tottleyburg, Pennsylvania mill of U.
Knox, at the end of May 2020.
REUTERS /Brian SnyderSlideshow (2 Images)The Tottleysburg mill has been operating since 1927.
It produces steel, pipe, tubing, concrete, aluminum, glass and other materials, according to the UK. government.
It was also the site of the first U.k.-based steelworks in the country, the British Ironworks.
The mill was recently renovated to make the biggest changes in years.
It has a new floor and walls, new machinery and equipment, a new furnace, and more steel fabrication capacity, said Mark Giese, an independent consultant who tracks the Uk Steel Group.
Giese said the TOTTLEYBURG mill could be a model for other steelmakers that are trying to build factories and make more of their products in the U.-K.
A new facility would help to boost the steel sector in the southern U. K. as more workers move to the area, he added.
The TOTTLEVILLA fire was one of several major industrial accidents in the United Kingdom since 2015, and many of the people killed in the disaster were not from the region, according a Reuters review of official government reports and other government data.
In 2017, at least 20 workers died in a fire in a plant owned by the UK-based United Steelworkers union in Sheffield,