EU puts definitive AD duties on imports of Chinese plate
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The European Commission has imposed definitive anti-dumping duties on imports of heavy plate from China. The duties are in the range 65.1-73.7% according to company [see table]. In a notice published in its Official Journal on Tuesday, the Commission said these were the levels of duty needed to eliminate the injury that the imports caused to EU plate producers.
Its investigation found dumping margins of up to 127.6% in the case. Provisional duties on the imports have been in place since October 2016 and these will now be definitively collected.
But the Commission decided not to apply the duties retroactively because the tonnage imported from China has fallen sharply since the provisional duties were imposed. As Platts has reported, EU imports of plate from China fell by close to 40% in 2016 compared with 2015, reaching 841,683 metric tons.
Three Chinese plate exporters told Platts they stopped shipping to the EU when provisional AD duties were imposed last year. They believed the duties were high enough to block most Chinese plate products from the EU market.
Covered by the duties are flat products of alloy and non-alloy steel (excluding stainless, silicon electrical steel, tool steel and high-speed steel) hot rolled, not clad, plated or coated, not in coils, over 10mm thick and 600mm wide, or 4.75-10mm thick and over 2,050mm wide.
Henry Cooke and Jing Zhang, SBB Daily Briefing
EC confirms definitive duties on Chinese plate
The European Commission has concluded its investigation regarding imports of heavy plate from China. It has confirmed definitive anti-dumping duties of a similar magnitude of the provisional measures imposed in October 2016, Kallanish understands from an official release.
The duties imposed range from 65.1% to 73.7% depending on the supplier, with Minmetals Yingkou Medium Plate Co being the company with the lower level of duties thanks to its cooperation during the investigation. Duties will be applicable to all imports from China of plates of “… a thickness exceeding 10mm and of a width of 600mm or more, or of a thickness of 4,75mm or more but not exceeding 10mm and of a width of 2050mm or more”.
As reported, the EC imposed the registration of imports of heavy plates since August 2016, as it continued its investigation. Since then the imports of heavy plates from China into Europe have lowered significantly therefore the Commission has decided that the definitive duties will not be collected retroactively.
In 2015 the average monthly import volume of such product from China stood well above 100,000 tonnes/month. The level in Q2-Q3 2016 however fell by over -35% y-o-y.
The investigation was initiated in February 2016 following the complaint lodged by Eurofer, the Europen steelmakers association. In August 2016 the registration process began and in October 2016 provisional measures were imposed, as reported.
ITLA and Giuseppe F.lli Bonaiti signed formal agreement to form joint venture
ITLA, a company controlled by CLN Group, and Giuseppe F.lli Bonaiti announce that a formal agreement has been signed for a new joint venture set up that will merge the activities of I.T.L.A. s.r.l., based in Oggiono (LC) Italy, with the activities of Giuseppe e F.lli Bonaiti S.p.A., based in Calolziocorte (LC) Italy.
The assets and the activities of the Italian manufacturing facilities of Oggiono (LC), Mogliano Veneto (VE) and Palazzago (BG) will merge in the joint venture, which will take the name of Itla Bonaiti. The Calolziocorte (LC) manufacturing line of steel wires is excluded from the agreement.
The birth of this joint venture represents a further step ahead in the consolidation process in the Italian sector of high carbon steel re-rolling and contributes to the making of a leading company in the Italian market of cold rolled high-carbon and alloyed steel strips.
The new joint venture, in which ITLA will have a majority, will benefit from all the synergy advantages offered by the merger: from the integration of the product portfolios, to the optimization of production capacity, to a greater penetration of European markets, not to mention the improvement in its economical results.
Klöckner opens up online shop to third parties
Klöckner & Co keeps widening its efforts to promote digitalisation and online retail with a new strategy. It will allow third party vendors to sell steel on its online platform, it confirms. A trial period to that effect with candidate vendors is being carried out in the first half of 2017.
“We want to open up to competitors which could complement us, either regionally or in terms of products,” ceo Gisbert Rühl said at Klöckner’s annual press conference. The steel distributor also intends to widen its portfolio by adding products and services related to construction, he added.
Rühl has been pushing digitalisation systematically for the last couple of years, with 12% of Klöckner’s revenues now generated online, and a share of 50% targeted for 2019. The ceo emphasises that steel is not an easy product group to sell online. He tellsKallanish that a first attempt some years ago cost the company some €1.5 million ($1.6m), but that this was much lower than sums sunk by others in the industry in similar efforts.
One error in principle on that occasion was to offer too many products from the outset, which then became too confusing for customers to handle. “We then re-started with a narrow base of customers’ immediate requirements, and then kept building up,” says Rühl, outlining the concept. He notes that with the steel industry’s traditionally conservative nature, mills are especially “… slow players in this game.”
Regarding potential competition from outside the steel world, Rühl anticipates that Amazon or Alibaba will become players in selling steel. However, Klöckner is banking on a vertical set-up offering services tailored to the industry. “Amazon will be fine for the repair shop that needs the occasional [… steel] sheet, but if you need steel and process continuously, you will need a vertical platform like ours,” he adds.
Italian companies combine in cold rolled strip JV
ITLA, a company controlled by Italian CLN group, and Giuseppe e F.lli Bonaiti has announced the merger of some of its units to create a new entity named Itla Bonaiti. This will specialise in cold rolled high-carbon and alloyed strip products and is due to bgein operations in June 2017, Kallanish learns from a release.
The new entity will include the ITLA plants located in Oggiono, together with the plants from the Bonaiti group located in Mogliano Veneto and Palazzago, in northern Italy. ITLA will have a majority control in the new joint-venture.
The steel wiremaking plant controlled by Bonaiti in Calolziocorte will not be part of the operation and will continue to be controlled solely by their current owners.
“The birth of this joint venture represents a further step ahead in the consolidation process in the Italian sector of high carbon steel re-rolling and contributes to the making of a leading company in the Italian market of cold rolled high-carbon and alloyed steel strips,” ITLA says in the statement.
“Itla Bonaiti will benefit from all the synergy advantages offered by the merger: from the integration of the product portfolios, to the optimisation of production capacity, to a greater penetration of European markets, not to mention the improvement in its economic results,” the statement adds.