Month: January 2017

German steel distributor Klöckner has sold its Spanish business to steelmaker Hierros Añon based in A Coruña, Spain, in a move to focus on its core markets, the Duisburg-headquartered company said on Friday.

According to Klöckner, the Kloeckner Metals Ibérica Group remains under pressure due to a continued difficult economic environment in Spain.

The Spanish arm generated sales of €120 million ($128.4 million) last year, accounting for around 2% of the Klöckner group’s sales. The division operates 24 distribution and service centers in Spain; shipments amount to 180,000 mt/year.

Klöckner is currently carrying out its “One Europe” program, focusing on core markets and centralizing the management structure of its European distribution services by the end of 2018. As reported, the distributor will reduce its workforce by around 100 jobs. The job cuts mainly affect Spain, France and the UK, but will not involve closures of actual stockholding sites.

“As part of our One Europe program we focus more and more on our core markets to improve our profitability. With the sale of our business in Spain we are consequently implementing this strategy,” Klöckner CEO Gisbert Rühl said.

Laura Varriale, PLATTS

San Polo Lamiere, the north Italy-based service centre specialised in flat processing and distribution, has acquired Tecnopali, a company that produces poles, towers and lighting systems and energy transmissions, it told Platts.

“The acquisition of Tecnopali represents the continuation of the strategy of diversification downstream already pursued by San Polo Lamiere,” Tommaso Sandrini, company CEO, told Platts.

Through the acquisition San Polo Lamiere also gains a minority share in Carpenter, which manufactures accessories for lighting towers.

San Polo Lamiere and Tecnopali, which will remain independent from the business perspective and operationally, will be able to develop significant synergies both on the cost side and logistically, as they are close to each other, Sandrini said. There could also be synergies “where additional opportunity for product development and innovation will arise, he added.

San Polo Lamiere, which processes 200,000 mt of sheets and strips, closed 2016 with a turnover of €102 million and with EBITDA of over 7%, almost doubling its net profit.

Annalisa Villa, PLATTS

Eunirpa, the European Non-Integrated Wire Rod Processors Association, has announced that it has established a technical committee on product standards.

The association was founded last year in protest of Eurofer’s efforts to have imports of wire rod to the EU possibly banned. Such a move would be only in the interest of the vertically integrated EU mills and would lead to shortages with drastic consequences for independent processors, the wire rod group argues.

Eunirpa says it is pleased about the results achieved in 2016. Its members have been fighting successfully to secure the right to continue to source mesh grade wire rod from independent producers around the world, it says. “One of the main goals of Eunirpa is to ensure that the EU wire rod market can keep operating in accordance with the principles of fair competition,” the association‘s president,  Kris Van Ginderdeuren, tells Kallanish.

However, he notes that there is no time to be complacent.  Technical barriers, such as the improper use of product standards, are of critical concern to members, which have decided to set up an ambitious action plan in this respect.

“Fair competition in our industry is not only threatened by the closing of the EU borders to imports through unfair anti-dumping action, but also by the creation of technical barriers through the improper use of product standards, both at national and supra-national levels.” At its meeting in Warsaw on Thursday, Eunirpa has decided to establish a technical committee which will draw up an action plan for product standards assessment.

Antonio Tajani, the European commissioner who started, back in 2013, the steel action plan, has been elected president of the European Parliament.

“We are welcoming the election of Tajani in his new position. He helped a lot the steel industry first in his role as European MP and then as the Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship. He re-started talk about the steel industry”, Antonio Gozzi, chairman of Italian steel federation Federacciai told Platts.

With his “steel action plan” Tajani was one of the first to draw attention to the major challenges that the European steel sector was facing: low demand in Europe not matching the installed capacity, increasing energy costs and reliance on imported raw materials, as well as highlighting unfair competition and challenging environmental requirements, Gozzi added.

In particular Tajani underscored the strategic importance of European steel due to its close links with many downstream industrial sectors such as automotive, construction and electronics, emphasizing the importance to take action to keep alive the steel sector in Europe in the overall view that a robust industrial base is essential for Europe’s economic growth.

The 2013 plan – the first comprehensive action plan for steel proposed by the Commission since the Davignon Plan of 1977 – came eleven years after the expiration of the European Coal & Steel Community (ECSC) Treaty in 2002.

In February 2016, the European Commission implemented and strengthened the “Tajani plan”, pushing for a level playing field as well as promoting investment and a favourable business environment. One of the most effective response was the imposing a record number of trade defence measures to offset the effect of dumping on Europe’s steel industry.

Annalisa Villa, PLATTS

German trading company C&F International is to close its Essen headquarters by the end of March, further streamlining its activities, sources close to the company told S&P Global Platts.

Following the closure of its office in Hamburg and the Spanish trading arm in Madrid last year, the Essen office continued to operate the activities of the closed offices, Platts learnt. Sources said a smaller company called S&P Steel Products will now look after the remaining trading business of C&F, which has another main office in Houston, US.

S&P Steel Products, headquartered in Houston, is a trading arm of Mexican industrial and financial group Villacero International, parent company of C&F. C&F, formerly known as Coutinho & Ferrostaal, was acquired by the group in 2012.

Villacero is the largest distributor of steel products in Mexico, and has manufacturing plants, distribution facilities, sales offices and service centers throughout Mexico and the US.

Platts was unable to reach C&F or Villacero for comment despite repeated attempts.

Laura Varriale and Peter Brennan, PLATTS

The port of Antwerp, one of the main transport hubs for ferrous metals in Europe, saw its throughput of steel and scrap increase significantly last year. This supported the hub’s overall expansion in 2016, Kallanish learns from the port authority.

The port handled over 1 million tonnes of scrap, up 6.5% year-on-year while movements of steel finished products reached 7.7mt, up 12.8% y-o-y.

Europe saw an increase in scrap exports to Turkey and other destinations in 2016, while the continent also increased significantly its imports of steel products, according to data from Eurofer.

Iron ore throughput at the port fell by -10.5% y-o-y to 2.1mt suggesting slightly lower activity from integrated mills’ imports of raw materials through Antwerp. Coal handled reached 1mt, down more significantly by -34.2% on-year.

The ferrous business at the port grew stronger than that for other sectors. The port handled 214mt of cargoes in total during 2016, up 2.7% y-o-y.