Christmas charity concert

The Christmas charity concert named "Bountiful Snowflakes", which took place in Kosice State Theater on Friday evening last week, December 9th 2005, was the culmination of this year's sponsorship activities by U. S. Steel Kosice, which celebrated the 5th anniversary in November of the beginning of its successful operations in Slovakia. At the Christmas charity concert, as it has now become customary, once again the principal gift was joy.
This was also thanks to the Company's employees, who have demonstrated more than once in the past that they are willing to help those who genuinely need help. With their voluntary financial collections they have helped the University Children's Hospital in Kosice for example to purchase a pulmonary ventilator, and last year it was an ambulance for the Kosice Emergency Rescue Service. This year, for the second time in the history of their collecctions, they have helped the East Slovakian Oncological Institute in Kosice. For the purchase of an automatic block cutter, which prevents damage occurring to healthy tissue during radiation treatment of malignant tumors, they have collected the very respectable sum of 1 264 824 Slovak crowns. A matching sum has also been contributed by U. S. Steel Kosice, so the final sum in support of the Institute comes to 2 529 648 SKK.
This joint financial gift was presented at the concert in the form of a symbolic check to the Director of the East Slovakian Oncological Institute in Kosice, Alexander Berc, by Vice-president Human Resourcces Miroslav Kiralvarga. A further million crowns specially for twelve libraries in Eastern Slovakia was another of this evening's generous gifts from U. S. Steel Kosice. "I'm glad that we are able to support these libraries," said Company President David H. Lohr before presenting the gift to Klara Kernerova, Director of the Jan Bocatius Library in Kosice. This action, he added, was symbolical regarding the Company's 5th anniversary, because the founder of the United States Steel Corporation, Andrew Carnegie, himself set up more than 2800 libraries all over the world. Over the entrance to each of them was the inscription: Let there be light. So let there be light also over the libraries that we support in Slovakia. Recorded highlights of the concert will be broadcast by six local television stations around Eastern Slovakia, starting on Friday, December 23rd.

Cokery workers celebrate

Today the Cokery workers celebrate forty years exactly since the first ever coke was produced here. The coking ovens were filled with the first coal charge on December 12th 1965, and two days later, on December 14th, PVR-type mass-production coking battery no.1 with 100 chambers was put into operation. This battery, together with the coal-charge preparation and chemical plants, formed the basis for the first cokery in Slovakia. In subsequent years further batteries were brought into operation, and coke production was progressively increased. In the last few years the Cokery Division has been undergoing extensive modernization.

Steelmaking team successfully represents USSK in IISI competition

At the end of November the International Iron & Steel Institute (IISI) organized an interesting competition in modeling a virtual production process for students and fresh graduates of colleges specializing in metallurgy who work for companies that are members of this international organization. Five employees of U. S. Steel Kosice also took part in this competition, and they represented the Company outstandingly. In a competitive field of more than 200 teams from 28 countries, they gained second place. The Kosice group was made up of Jozef Balun, Marek Molnar, Erik Steranka, Rastislav Rusic and Richard Gasparik.