[central_va]

Oh God, he biggest problem is no oxygen! You can’t smelt steel without oxygen!!!

[JoeFromSidney]

No, not so. I used to work in a steel mill. The operation of a blast furnace involves putting iron ore (iron oxide) and coke in the furnace and letting the carbon in the coke combine with the oxygen in the ore, producing the heat to melt the iron. The molten iron is then transferred to (in my time) an open-hearth furnace where air is blown at it to burn our the carbon, or, more recently, oxygen is bubbled through the molten iron to burn out the carbon (basic oxygen process). Smelting does not involve oxygen. It's the oxygen in the iron oxide that does the trick.