Producer
Algoma Steel Inc.
Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada-based steel producer (TSX/Nasdaq: ASTL); second-largest steel producer in Canada; the largest employer in Sault Ste. Marie (~2,800 employees). Founded 1901; longest-tenured employer in northern Ontario. Complex bankruptcy history: receivership 1990 (after Dofasco acquisition), emergence 1992; second bankruptcy 2002, emergence 2002; CCAA creditor protection November 2015 (as Essar Steel Algoma, under Indian Essar Group ownership), emergence 2018; SPAC merger May 2021 (Legato Merger Corp), became publicly traded (ASTL). Currently building an electric arc furnace for reduced carbon operations. Products: hot and cold rolled steel sheet, as-rolled and heat-treated plate, carbon and HSLA grades, floor plate, welded structural beams. Has an in-plant heat treating facility (normalize, quench, temper). 166-inch plate mill. HSLA plate explicitly confirmed as product. Now subject to 2025 reinstated Section 232 tariffs on Canadian steel — increases costs for US apparatus manufacturers sourcing Algoma HSLA.
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Hot Rolled Steel Plate
45%Hot & Cold Rolled Sheet
30%Structural Steel
15%EAF Transition (In Progress)
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Incident2024
Algoma Steel (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario) — a significant supplier of HSLA plate to US fire apparatus manufacturers — has gone through bankruptcy or creditor protection FOUR times in 90 years: receivership 1932 (Great Depression), receivership 1990 (after Dofasco wrote off its equity), CCAA filing 2002, and CCAA filing 2015 (as Essar Steel Algoma under Indian ownership). The 2015-2018 CCAA period was the most severe — Algoma became "Essar Steel Algoma" under the Essar Group and then filed for insolvency protection in 2015, disrupting its position in the supply chain for two years before emerging under new Canadian ownership in 2018. A SPAC merger in 2021 restored public market access. A steel company that has filed for insolvency protection four times is a structural counterparty risk for any apparatus manufacturer that depends on it for critical HSLA plate.
Wikipedia ↗Origin2023
Algoma Steel was founded in 1901 in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario -- a city built almost entirely around Algoma's operations on the St. Mary's River connecting Lake Superior and Lake Huron. The founding was financed in part by Francis Clergue, an American entrepreneur who arrived in Sault Ste. Marie in 1894 and systematically built a pulp mill, power plant, and steel mill using the waterfall at the St. Mary's rapids for power. For 124 years, Algoma has been the dominant employer in a city of 70,000 people -- 2,800 direct employees in a single facility. The company has survived four insolvency events (Great Depression, 1990, 2002, 2015-2018) through Canadian government intervention, creditor restructuring, or new ownership. Its most recent ownership history spans Indian ownership (Essar Group, 2007-2018) and SPAC public listing (2021), making it one of the most financially turbulent major steel companies in North American history -- but also the anchor institution for a northern Ontario city with no economic alternative.
Algoma Steel Inc. ↗